PRINCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 35, 4 May 1927, Page 14

PRINCE

“For who knows the spirit of man which goeth upward or the spirit of the beast which goeth downwards to the earth?”

Prince is pensioned off. His world has narrowed to’ a five-acre paddock, where the lush green clover reaches to his fetlocks and the larks fly echoing upwards at the sound of his approach. The meadow is starred with wild flowers and the bees drone hither and thither in endless activity and quest. At the foot of Prince’s territory runs a shallow stream where the willows lean over in green content to watch their broken reflections in the water. Here the days move in smooth procession, but for Prince life is a monotonous business. He is too old to work and too young to die. Hemmed in by fences and tradition, he is doomed to reap the unsubstantial reward of long and faithful servitude. Gone are those golden days when his muscles relaxed to that wheedling, “Steady there, Prince,” and gathered for fresh effort at the turn of the furrow with the steamy nearness of his toiling kin warm in his nostrils, and all about him the pungent smell of newly-turned earth that went to his head like some perennial draught of wine. Gone, too, the drinking trough and stable and all the busy farmyard stir, the milkmaid with her stool and pail, the defensive hissing of the gander, the abrupt, inconsequent chatter of foraging ducks, the maternal clucking of beruffled hens with their wandering yellow broods. Hour by hour he stands, his head sunk in profound meditation, his cover hanging loosely from his shoulders like a badly-fitting overcoat, the sun streaming down upon him, the wind tweaking at his shaggy mane and tail. “For who knows the spirit of man which goeth upward or the spirit of the beast which goeth downwards to the earth ?” Perhaps, after all, there is a special heaven for old work-worn horses with their drowsy ruminations and their mild, half-human eyes. And even Prince when he dies may become a Pegasus and regain the wings that age has so long denied him. —W.S.T. When cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits.

We are such stuff as dreams are made of and our little life is rounded with a sleep.