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“A moment, with a faint low neigh,690
“He answer’d, and then fell;
“With gasps and glazing eyes he lay,
“And reeking limbs immoveable,
“His first and last career is done!
“On came the troop—they saw him stoop,
“They saw me strangely bound along
“His back with many a bloody thong:
“They stop—they start—they snuff the air,
“Gallop a moment here and there,
“Approach, retire, wheel round and round,700
“Then plunging back with sudden bound,
“Headed by one black mighty steed,
“Who seem’d the patriarch of his breed,
“Without a single speck or hair
“Of white upon his shaggy hide;
“They snort—they foam—neigh—swerve aside,
“And backward to the forest fly,
“By instinct, from a human eye.—
“They left me there, to my despair,
“Link’d to the dead and stiffening wretch,710
“Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch,