I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.

Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle
Weather-worn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion,
With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.

The trail is through dolour and dread, over crags and morasses;
There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:
What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding.

Thought's self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb,
And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam:
Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing.

A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle,
A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty:
We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers.

(I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.)

We spur to a land of no name, out-racing the storm-wind;
We leap to the infinite dark like sparks from the anvil.
Thou leadest, O God! All's well with Thy troopers that follow.

Says Tom to Jack, 'Tis very odd,
These representatives of God,
In colour, way of life, and evil,
Should be so very like the devil'.
Jack, understand, was one of those 
Who mould religion in the nose,
A red-hot Methodist; his face 
Was full of puritanic grace,
His loose lank hair, his slow gradation, 
Declared a late regeneration;
Among the daughters long renowned.
For standing upon holy ground;
Never in carnal battle beat,
Though sometimes forced to a retreat.
But Catcott, hero as he is,
Knight of incomparable phiz,
When pliant doxy seems to yield, 
Courageously forsakes the field.
Jack, or to write more gravely, John, 
Through hills of Wesley's works had gone; 
Could sing one hundred hymns by rote, 
Hymns which will sanctify the throat:
But some indeed composed so oddly,
You’d swear 'twas bawdy songs made godly.