In the Great Pastures
“ Our cattle also shall go with us.” — EXODUS X. 26.
WHEN the grave twilight moves toward the west,
And the horizons of the plain are blurred,
I watch, on gradual slope and foothill crest,
The dark line of the herd.
And something primal through my being thrills,
For that line met the night when life began !
And cattle gathered from a thousand hills
Have kept the trail with man,
Till their calm eyes his greater iliads hold :
The wonder look, the dumb reproof and pain,
Have followed him since Abram’s herds of old
Darkened the Asian plain.
And the horizons of the plain are blurred,
I watch, on gradual slope and foothill crest,
The dark line of the herd.
And something primal through my being thrills,
For that line met the night when life began !
And cattle gathered from a thousand hills
Have kept the trail with man,
Till their calm eyes his greater iliads hold :
The wonder look, the dumb reproof and pain,
Have followed him since Abram’s herds of old
Darkened the Asian plain.
Meredith Nicholson.