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Robert W Service - El Toro
Work rating: Medium

	Green mountains reared against the sky.
	And tranquil as a herd of cows,
	With horsemen nonchalantly nigh
	I saw a hundred bulls a-browse.
	In supple strength and pride they grazed,
	And life was simple, sweet and full;
	With placid peace their  eyes were glazed―
	                  How good to be a bull!

	But one outstood beyond the rest,
	With inky dewlaps, orange eyes;
	High-horned and rampant for the test
	Of red revolt and sacrifice.
	So from the herd they cut him out,
	And following a pilot ox
	They harried him with goad and shout
	                  Into a dung-deep box.

	Then in that dark and narrow pen
	He stood a week of dreary days,
	While taunted by down-peering men
	He yearned for brother bulls a-graze:
	Hoof-loose in God’s green spaciousness,
	The purity of hill and-plain,`
	The dewy dawn, the breeze caress . . .
	                  Ah, liberty again!

	A door swung wide―with horn up-fling
	He hurtles to the happy light.
	Rapture! Then in a sandy ring
	He halts, bewildered at the sight:
	Tier upon tier, from sand to sky,
	Of gleaming faces, glad and grim;
	Full fifty thousand poised on high,
	                  Their vision fixed on him.

	Red rags before his eyes they flaunt,
	Till mad with rage, but unafraid, `
	He hurls his passion to the taunt
	And scars the crimson barricade.
	With lance and dart his heart they break;
	Blood-boltered there he stands alone;
	Yet I for hopeless valour’ sake
	                  Would set him on a throne.

	Would place him far above them all . . .
	His blood now mingles with his breath:
	Upon his knees I see him fall,
	As dauntlessly he waits for death. . . .
	Oh! Spain, to heaven high you stink!
	And as I take the car to town,
	A dame, American, I think,
	                  Pukes on her satin gown.
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