«A Ballad Of Wasted Years» by Francis Duggan
I have walked through tougher Harlem where few strangers dare to go
And I’ve been in London City in the rain and in the snow
And I’ve worked in inner Melbourne in the searing summer heat
And believe me if I tell you I have earned the bread I eat.
I have laboured in deep trenches with my life I’ve took a dare
And I’ve worked in cherry pickers ninety foot up in the air
And the hands of time keep turning and the years go quickly by
And the man who lives on welfare is still better off than I.
And who needs the tag of good worker it’s no big deal anyway
He’s a wiser and better off man who sits at home all day
And his conscience doesn’t prick him isn’t he the lucky one
And must I be one great idiot to go labouring in the sun.
I was low in social ladder and I still am way down low
And I feel my life’s been wasted for my years have nought to show
Some may say he’s a good worker that’s of little use to me
All I need is lots of money I don’t need your sympathy.
I felt happy for a brief while in a green Land miles away
In that beautiful green Country where I lived for many a day
I felt inwardly contented even though I was quite poor
Listening to the pipits piping in the meads of Annagloor.
Till the wanderlust possessed me I grew restless as the wind
Pity on all migrant workers, pity on all wandering kind
Went to live in foreign city worked with strong hard working men
But I’ve nought to show for labour I’m poor now as I was then.
In Ireland I cut down pine trees in the hills where bracken grow
And in Wales I picked potatoes many, many years ago
I have laboured for a living on myself I have been cruel
All the World laughs at an idiot all the World laughs at a fool.
I am getting old and weary and what hair I’ve left is gray
And I’m well beyond the fifty and I’ve seen a better day
And like the work weary work horse all the better years are gone
And I still work as a labourer and I still keep plodding on.
Please don’t say he’s a good worker such words I don’t wish to hear
For I’ve nought to show for labour though I’ve worked for many a year
Words like ‘good hard working fellow’ does not do a thing for me
All I need is lots of money, I don’t need your sympathy.
***
«A Blessing» by James Wright
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
***
«A Bushman’s Song» by Banjo Paterson
I’M travellin’ down the Castlereagh, and I’m a station hand,
I’m handy with the ropin’ pole, I’m handy with the brand,
And I can ride a rowdy colt, or swing the axe all day,
But there’s no demand for a station-hand along the Castlereagh. +
So it’s shift, boys, shift, for there isn’t the slightest doubt
That we’ve got to make a shift to the stations further out,
With the pack-horse runnin’ after, for he follows like a dog,
We must strike across the country at the old jig-jog.
This old black horse I’m riding—if you’ll notice what’s his brand,
He wears the crooked R, you see—none better in the land.
He takes a lot of beatin’, and the other day we tried,
For a bit of a joke, with a racing bloke, for twenty pounds a side.
It was shift, boys, shift, for there wasn’t the slightest doubt
That I had to make him shift, for the money was nearly out;
But he cantered home a winner, with the other one at the flog—
He’s a red-hot sort to pick up with his old jig-jog.
I asked a cove for shearin’ once along the Marthaguy:
“We shear non-union here,” says he. “I call it scab,” says I.
I looked along the shearin’ floor before I turned to go—
There were eight or ten dashed Chinamen a-shearin’ in a row.
It was shift, boys, shift, for there wasn’t the slightest doubt
It was time to make a shift with the leprosy about.
So I saddled up my horses, and I whistled to my dog,
And I left his scabby station at the old jig-jog.
I went to Illawarra, where my brother’s got a farm,
He has to ask his landlord’s leave before he lifts his arm;
The landlord owns the country side—man, woman, dog, and cat,
They haven’t the cheek to dare to speak without they touch their hat.
It was shift, boys, shift, for there wasn’t the slightest doubt
Their little landlord god and I would soon have fallen out;
Was I to touch my hat to him?—was I his bloomin’ dog?
So I makes for up the country at the old jig-jog.
But it’s time that I was movin’, I’ve a mighty way to go
Till I drink artesian water from a thousand feet below;
Till I meet the overlanders with the cattle comin’ down,
And I’ll work a while till I make a pile, then have a spree in town.
So, it’s shift, boys, shift, for there isn’t the slightest doubt
We’ve got to make a shift to the stations further out;
The pack-horse runs behind us, for he follows like a dog,
And we cross a lot of country at the old jig-jog.
***
«A Dog’s Mistake» by Banjo Paterson
He had drifted in among us as a straw drifts with the tide,
He was just a wand’ring mongrel from the weary world outside;
He was not aristocratic, being mostly ribs and hair,
With a hint of spaniel parents and a touch of native bear.
He was very poor and humble and content with what he got,
So we fed him bones and biscuits, till he heartened up a lot;
Then he growled and grew aggressive, treating orders with disdain,
Till at last he bit the butcher, which would argue want of brain.
Now the butcher, noble fellow, was a sport beyond belief,
And instead of bringing actions he brought half a shin of beef,
Which he handed on to Fido, who received it as a right
And removed it to the garden, where he buried it at night.
‘Twas the means of his undoing, for my wife, who’d stood his friend,
To adopt a slang expression, “went in off the deepest end”,
For among the pinks and pansies, the gloxinias and the gorse
He had made an excavation like a graveyard for a horse.
Then we held a consultation which decided on his fate:
‘Twas in anger more than sorrow that we led him to the gate,
And we handed him the beef-bone as provision for the day,
Then we opened wide the portal and we told him, “On your way.”
***
«A Winter Ride» by Amy Lowell
Who shall declare the joy of the running!
Who shall tell of the pleasures of flight!
Springing and spurning the tufts of wild heather,
Sweeping, wide-winged, through the blue dome of light.
Everything mortal has moments immortal,
Swift and God-gifted, immeasurably bright.
So with the stretch of the white road before me,
Shining snowcrystals rainbowed by the sun,
Fields that are white, stained with long, cool, blue shadows,
Strong with the strength of my horse as we run.
Joy in the touch of the wind and the sunlight!
Joy! With the vigorous earth, I am one.
***
«A Woman Driving» by Thomas Hardy
How she held up the horses’ heads,
Firm-lipped, with steady rein,
Down that grim steep the coastguard treads,
Till all was safe again!
With form erect and keen contour
She passed against the sea,
And, dipping into the chine’s obscure,
Was seen no more by me.
To others she appeared anew
At times of dusky light,
But always, so they told, withdrew
From close and curious sight.
Some said her silent wheels would roll
Rutless on softest loam,
And even that her steeds’ footfall
Sank not upon the foam.
Where drives she now? It may be where
No mortal horses are,
But in a chariot of the air
Towards some radiant star.
***
«Advice To A Prophet» by Richard Wilbur
When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city,
Mad-eyed from stating the obvious,
Not proclaiming our fall but begging us
In God’s name to have self-pity,
Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,
The long numbers that rocket the mind;
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,
Unable to fear what is too strange.
Nor shall you scare us with talk of the death of the race.
How should we dream of this place without us?–
The sun mere fire, the leaves untroubled about us,
A stone look on the stone’s face?
Speak of the world’s own change. Though we cannot conceive
Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost
How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines are blackened by frost,
How the view alters. We could believe,
If you told us so, that the white-tailed deer will slip
Into perfect shade, grown perfectly shy,
The lark avoid the reaches of our eye,
The jack-pine lose its knuckled grip
On the cold ledge, and every torrent burn
As Xanthus once, its gliding trout
Stunned in a twinkling. What should we be without
The dolphin’s arc, the dove’s return,
These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken?
Ask us, prophet, how we shall call
Our natures forth when that live tongue is all
Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken
In which we have said the rose of our love and the clean
Horse of our courage, in which beheld
The singing locust of the soul unshelled,
And all we mean or wish to mean.
Ask us, ask us whether with the worldless rose
Our hearts shall fail us; come demanding
Whether there shall be lofty or long standing
When the bronze annals of the oak-tree close.
***
«At Grass» by Philip Larkin
The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in,
Till wind distresses tail and mane;
Then one crops grass, and moves about
– The other seeming to look on –
And stands anonymous again
Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps
Two dozen distances sufficed
To fable them : faint afternoons
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,
Whereby their names were artificed
To inlay faded, classic Junes –
Silks at the start : against the sky
Numbers and parasols : outside,
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,
And littered grass : then the long cry
Hanging unhushed till it subside
To stop-press columns on the street.
Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The starting-gates, the crowd and cries –
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they
Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
Or curious stop-watch prophesies :
Only the grooms, and the grooms boy,
With bridles in the evening come.
***
«Boot and Saddle» by Robert Browning
Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
Rescue my Castle, before the hot day
Brightens the blue from its silvery grey,
“Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!”
Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you’d say;
Many’s the friend there, will listen and pray
“God’s luck to gallants that strike up the lay,
“Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!”
Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay,
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads array:
Who laughs, Good fellows ere this, by my fay,
“Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!”
Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay,
Laughs when you talk of surrendering, “Nay!
I’ve better counsellors; what counsel they?”
(Chorus) “Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!”
***
«Cirque D’Hiver» by Elizabeth Bishop
Across the floor flits the mechanical toy,
fit for a king of several centuries back.
A little circus horse with real white hair.
His eyes are glossy black.
He bears a little dancer on his back.
She stands upon her toes and turns and turns.
A slanting spray of artificial roses
is stitched across her skirt and tinsel bodice.
Above her head she poses
another spray of artificial roses.
His mane and tail are straight from Chirico.
He has a formal, melancholy soul.
He feels her pink toes dangle toward his back
along the little pole
that pierces both her body and her soul
and goes through his, and reappears below,
under his belly, as a big tin key.
He canters three steps, then he makes a bow,
canters again, bows on one knee,
canters, then clicks and stops, and looks at me.
The dancer, by this time, has turned her back.
He is the more intelligent by far.
Facing each other rather desperately—
his eye is like a star—
we stare and say, “Well, we have come this far.”
***
«Conscientious Objector» by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he clinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.
Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where
the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.
I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much,
I will not map him the route to any man’s door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living,
that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
are safe with me; never through me Shall you be overcome.
***
«Don’t Cry For The Horses» by Brenda Riley-Seymore
Don’t cry for the horses that life has set free.
A million white horses, forever to be.
Don’t cry for the horses now in God’s hands.
As they dance and prance to a heavenly band.
They were ours as a gift, but never to keep
As they close their eyes, forever to sleep.
Their spirits unbound, forever to fly.
A million white horses, against the blue sky.
Look up into Heaven. You will see them above.
The horse we lost, the horse we loved.
Manes and tails flying, they gallop through time.
They were never yours, they were never mine.
Don’t cry for the horses, they will be back someday.
When our time has come, they will show us the way.
Do you hear that soft nicker close to your ear?
Don’t cry for the horses, love the ones that are here.
***
«Fate» by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Deep in the man sits fast his fate
To mould his fortunes, mean or great:
Unknown to Cromwell as to me
Was Cromwell’s measure or degree;
Unknown to him as to his horse,
If he than his groom be better or worse.
He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs,
With squires, lords, kings, his craft compares,
Till late he learned, through doubt and fear,
Broad England harbored not his peer:
Obeying time, the last to own
The Genius from its cloudy throne.
For the prevision is allied
Unto the thing so signified;
Or say, the foresight that awaits
Is the same Genius that creates.
***
«Follower» by Seamus Heaney
My father worked with a horse-plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horse strained at his clicking tongue.
An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright steel-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck
Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.
I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.
I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm.
I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.
***
«Grierson’s Raid» by Hanford Lennox Gordon
Mount to horse mount to horse;
Forward, Battalion!
Gallop the gallant force;
Down with Rebellion!
Over hill, creek and plain
Clatter the fearless
Dash away splash away
Led by the Peerless.
Carbines crack foemen fly
Hither and thither;
Under the death-fire
They falter and wither.
Burn the bridge tear the track
Down with Rebellion!
Cut the wires cut the wires!
Forward, Battalion!
Day and night night and day,
Gallop the fearless
Swimming the rivers’ floods
Led by the Peerless;
Depots and powder-trains
Blazing and thundering
Masters and dusky slaves
Gazing and wondering.
Eight hundred miles they ride
Dauntless Battalion
Down through the Southern Land
Mad with Rebellion.
Into our lines they dash
Brave Cavaliers
Greeting our flag with
A thunder of cheers.
***
«Having This Day My Horse» by Sir Philip Sidney
Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance
Guided so well that I obtain’d the prize,
Both by the judgment of the English eyes
And of some sent from that sweet enemy France;
Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance,
Town folks my strength; a daintier judge applies
His praise to sleight which from good use doth rise;
Some lucky wits impute it but to chance;
Others, because of both sides I do take
My blood from them who did excel in this,
Think Nature me a man of arms did make.
How far they shot awry! The true cause is,
Stella look’d on, and from her heav’nly face
Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race.
***
«Horse» by Elizabeth Madox Roberts
His bridle hung around the post.
The sun and the leaves made spots come down;
I looked close at him through the fence;
The post was drab and he was brown.
His nose was long and hard and still,
And on his lip were specks like chalk.
But once he opened up his eyes,
And he began to talk.
He didn’t talk out with his mouth;
He didn’t talk with words or noise.
The talk was there along his nose;
It seemed and then it was.
He said the day was hot and slow,
And he said he didn’t like the flies;
They made him have to shake his skin,
And they got drowned in his eyes.
He said that drab was just about
The same as brown, but he was not
A post, he said, to hold a fence.
“I’m horse,” he said, “that’s what!”
And then he shut his eyes again.
As still as they had been before.
He said for me to run along
And not to bother him any more.
***
«Horse and Rider» by Kim Schilling
Galloping towards the base of the steep hill,
watching the breeze bluster through her mane,
with a mild touch I veered her with reign;
For a serene moment all time stood still.
Horse and mount journeying with great skill,
but collectively as one we must attain;
Galloping towards the base of the steep hill,
watching the breeze bluster through her mane.
Feeling the power beneath me is a thrill,
and racing across the meadowy plane,
a feeling rushes over I can’t explain,
perhaps the reality of taking a spill;
Galloping towards the base of the steep hill.
***
«Hunting Song» by Sir Walter Scott
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
On the mountain dawns the day;
All the jolly chase is here
With hawk and horse and hunting-spear,
Hounds are in their couples yelling,
Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling,
Merrily, merrily mingle they
Waken, lords and ladies gay.
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
The mist has left the mountain gray;
Springlets in the dawn are steaming,
Diamonds on the brake are gleaming;
And foresters have busy been
To track the buck in thicket green;
Now we come to chant our lay,
Waken, lords and ladies gay.
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
To the greenwood haste away;
We can show you where he lies,
Fleet of foot and tall of size;
We can show the marks he made
When ‘gainst the oak his antlers fray’d;
You shall see him brought to bay
Waken, lords and ladies gay.
Louder, louder chant the lay,
Waken, lords and ladies gay!
Tell them youth and mirth and glee
Run a course as well as we;
Time, stern huntsman! who can balk,
Staunch as hound and fleet as hawk:
Think of this, and rise with day,
Gentle lords and ladies gay!
***
«In Clay» by Madison Julius Cawein
Here went a horse with heavy laboring stride
Along the woodland side;
Deep in the clay his iron hoof-marks show,
Patient and slow,
Where with his human burden yesterday
He passed this way.
Would that this wind that tramples ’round me here,
Among the sad and sere
Of winter-weary forests, were a steed,
Mighty indeed,
And tameless as the tempest of its pace,
Upon whom man might place.
The boundless burden of his mortal cares,
Life’s griefs, despairs,
And ruined dreams that bow the spirit so!
And let him go
Bearing them far from the sad world, ah me!
Leaving it free.
As in that Age of Gold, of which men tell,
When Earth was glad and gods came here to dwell.
***
«Madam And Her Madam» by Langston Hughes
I worked for a woman,
She wasn’t mean–
But she had a twelve-room
House to clean.
Had to get breakfast,
Dinner, and supper, too–
Then take care of her children
When I got through.
Wash, iron, and scrub,
Walk the dog around–
It was too much,
Nearly broke me down.
I said, Madam,
Can it be
You trying to make a
Pack-horse out of me?
She opened her mouth.
She cried, Oh, no!
You know, Alberta,
I love you so!
I said, Madam,
That may be true–
But I’ll be dogged
If I love you!
***
«O’Dowd Of The Jefferson Club» by Edwin C. Ranck
A maddened horse comes down the street,
With waving mane and flying feet.
The crowd scatters in every direction;
It looks like a fight at a city election.
A big policeman waves his hands,
And the air is full of vague commands,
While across the street a retail grocer
Shrieks to his child as the horse draws closer
When suddenly out of the mad hubbub,
Steps Jimmie O’Dowd of the Jefferson Club.
Every man there holds his breath–
To stop the horse means sudden death.
But quick as a flash,
O’Dowd makes a dash.
With all his might and the horse’s mane,
He brings the old plug to a halt again.
Then every man there doffs his hat
And cries “Well, what do you think of that?”
Never since the days of Nero
Has there been a greater hero.
***
«Peleg Poague» by Edgar Lee Masters
Horses and men are just alike.
There was my stallion, Billy Lee,
Black as a cat and trim as a deer,
With an eye of fire, keen to start,
And he could hit the fastest speed
Of any racer around Spoon River.
But just as you’d think he couldn’t lose,
With his lead of fifty yards or more,
He’d rear himself and throw the rider,
And fall back over, tangled up,
Completely gone to pieces.
You see he was a perfect fraud:
He couldn’t win, he couldn’t work,
He was too light to haul or plow with,
And no one wanted colts from him.
And when I tried to drive him – well,
He ran away and killed me.
***
«Rain And Wind» by Madison Julius Cawein
I hear the hoofs of horses
Galloping over the hill,
Galloping on and galloping on,
When all the night is shrill
With wind and rain that beats the pane,
And my soul with awe is still.
For every dripping window
Their headlong rush makes bound,
Galloping up, and galloping by,
Then back again and around,
Till the gusty roofs ring with their hoofs,
And the draughty cellars sound.
And then I hear black horsemen
Hallooing in the night;
Hallooing and hallooing,
They ride o’er vale and height,
And the branches snap and the shutters clap
With the fury of their flight.
Then at each door a horseman,
With burly bearded lip
Hallooing through the keyhole,
Pauses with cloak a-drip;
And the door-knob shakes and the panel quakes
‘Neath the anger of his whip.
All night I hear their gallop,
And their wild halloo’s alarm;
The tree-tops sound and vanes go round
In forest and on farm;
But never a hair of a thing is there,
Only the wind and storm.
***
«Reverie» by Walter De La Mare
When slim Sophia mounts her horse
And paces down the avenue,
It seems an inward melody
She paces to.
Each narrow hoof is lifted high
Beneath the dark enclust’ring pines,
A silver ray within his bit
And bridle shines.
His eye burns deep, his tail is arched,
And streams upon the shadowy air,
The daylight sleeks his jetty flanks,
His mistress’ hair.
Her habit flows in darkness down,
Upon the stirrup rests her foot,
Her brow is lifted, as if earth
She heeded not.
‘Tis silent in the avenue,
The sombre pines are mute of song,
The blue is dark, there moves no breeze
The boughs among.
When slim Sophia mounts her horse
And paces down the avenue,
It seems an inward melody
She paces to.
***
«Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening» by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
***
«Strange Fits Of Passion Have I Known» by William Wordsworth
Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.
When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening-moon.
Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.
And now we reached the orchard-plot;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot
Came near, and nearer still.
In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature’s gentlest boon!
And all the while my eye I kept
On the descending moon.
My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.
What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Lover’s head!
‘O mercy!’ to myself I cried,
‘If Lucy hould be dead!’
***
«Strathcona’s Horse» by William Henry Drummond
O I was thine, and thou wert mine, and
ours the boundless plain,
Where the winds of the North, my gallant
steed, ruffled thy tawny mane,
But the summons hath come with roll of drum,
and bugles ringing shrill,
Startling the prairie antelope, the grizzly of the
hill.
‘Tis the voice of Empire calling, and the child-
ren gather fast
From every land where the cross bar floats out
from the quivering mast;
So into the saddle I leap, my own, with bridle
swinging free,
And thy hoofbeats shall answer the trumpets
blowing across the sea.
Then proudly toss thy head aloft, nor think of
the foe to-morrow,
For he who dares to stay our course drinks
deep of the Cup of Sorrow.
Thy form hath pressed the meadow’s breast,
where the sullen grey wolf hides,
The great red river of the North hath cooled
thy burning sides;
Together we’ve slept while the tempest swept
the Rockies’ glittering chain;
And many a day the bronze centaur hath gal-
loped behind in vain.
But the sweet wild grass of mountain pass, and
the battlefields far away,
And the trail that ends where Empire trends,
is the trail we ride to-day.
But proudly toss thy head aloft, nor think of
the foe to-morrow,
For he who bars Strathcona’s Horse, drinks
deep of the Cup of Sorrow.
***
«The Bay Horse» by Arthur Conan Doyle
Squire wants the bay horse,
For it is the best.
Squire holds the mortgage;
Where’s the interest?
Haven’t got the interest,
Can’t raise a sou;
Shan’t sell the bay horse,
Whatever he may do.
Did you see the bay horse?
Such a one to go!
He took a bit of ridin’,
When I showed him at the Show.
First prize the broad jump,
First prize the high;
Gold medal, Class A,
You’ll see it by-and-by.
I bred the bay horse
On the Withy Farm.
I broke the bay horse,
He broke my arm.
Don’t blame the bay horse,
Blame the brittle bone,
I bred him and I’ve fed him,
And he’s all my very own.
Just watch the bay horse
Chock full of sense!
Ain’t he just beautiful,
Risin’ to a fence!
Just hear the bay horse
Whinin’ in his stall,
Purrin’ like a pussy cat
When he hears me call.
But if Squire’s lawyer
Serves me with his writ,
I’ll take the bay horse
To Marley gravel pit.
Over the quarry edge,
I’ll sit him tight,
If he wants the brown hide,
He’s welcome to the white!
***
«The Blood Horse» by Bryan Waller Procter
Gamarra is a dainty steed,
Strong, black, and of a noble breed,
Full of fire, and full of bone,
With all his line of fathers known;
Fine his nose, his nostrils thin,
But blown abroad by the pride within!
His mane is like a river flowing,
And his eyes like embers glowing
In the darkness of the night,
And his pace as swift as light.
Look,—how ’round his straining throat
Grace and shifting beauty float!
Sinewy strength is in his reins,
And the red blood gallops through his veins;
Richer, redder, never ran
Through the boasting heart of man.
He can trace his lineage higher
Than the Bourbon dare aspire,—
Douglas, Guzman, or the Guelph,
Or O’Brien’s blood itself!
He, who hath no peer, was born,
Here, upon a red March morn;
But his famous fathers dead
Were Arabs all, and Arab bred,
And the last of that great line
Trod like one of a race divine!
And yet,—he was but friend to one
Who fed him at the set of sun,
By some lone fountain fringed with green:
With him, a roving Bedouin,
He lived, (none else would he obey
Through all the hot Arabian day),
And died untamed upon the sands
Where Balkh amidst the desert stands.
***
«The Dream» by Louise Bogan
O God, in the dream the terrible horse began
To paw at the air, and make for me with his blows,
Fear kept for thirty-five years poured through his mane,
And retribution equally old, or nearly, breathed through his nose.
Coward complete, I lay and wept on the ground
When some strong creature appeared, and leapt for the rein.
Another woman, as I lay half in a swound
Leapt in the air, and clutched at the leather and chain.
Give him, she said, something of yours as a charm.
Throw him, she said, some poor thing you alone claim.
No, no, I cried, he hates me; he is out for harm,
And whether I yield or not, it is all the same.
But, like a lion in a legend, when I flung the glove
Pulled from my sweating, my cold right hand;
The terrible beast, that no one may understand,
Came to my side, and put down his head in love.
***
«The fly-away horse» by Eugene Field
Oh, a wonderful horse is the Fly-Away Horse –
Perhaps you have seen him before;
Perhaps, while you slept, his shadow has swept
Through the moonlight that floats on the floor.
For it’s only at night, when the stars twinkle bright,
That the Fly-Away Horse, with a neigh
And a pull at his rein and a toss of his mane,
Is up on his heels and away!
The Moon in the sky,
As he gallopeth by,
Cries: “Oh! what a marvelous sight!”
And the Stars in dismay
Hide their faces away
In the lap of old Grandmother Night.
It is yonder, out yonder, the Fly-Away Horse
Speedeth ever and ever away –
Over meadows and lanes, over mountains and plains,
Over streamlets that sing at their play;
And over the sea like a ghost sweepeth he,
While the ships they go sailing below,
And he speedeth so fast that the men at the mast
Adjudge him some portent of woe.
“What ho there!” they cry,
As he flourishes by
With a whisk of his beautiful tail;
And the fish in the sea
Are as scared as can be,
From the nautilus up to the whale!
And the Fly-Away Horse seeks those faraway lands
You little folk dream of at night –
Where candy-trees grow, and honey-brooks flow,
And corn-fields with popcorn are white;
And the beasts in the wood are ever so good
To children who visit them there –
What glory astride of a lion to ride,
Or to wrestle around with a bear!
The monkeys, they say:
“Come on, let us play,”
And they frisk in the cocoanut-trees:
While the parrots, that cling
To the peanut-vines, sing
Or converse with comparative ease!
Off! scamper to bed – you shall ride him tonight!
For, as soon as you’ve fallen asleep,
With a jubilant neigh he shall bear you away
Over forest and hillside and deep!
But tell us, my dear, all you see and you hear
In those beautiful lands over there,
Where the Fly-Away Horse wings his faraway course
With the wee one consigned to his care.
Then grandma will cry
In amazement: “Oh, my!”
And she’ll think it could never be so;
And only we two
Shall know it is true –
You and I, little precious! shall know!
***
«The Horse» by James Stephens
A sparrow hopped about the street,
And he was not a bit afraid;
He flew between a horse’s feet,
And ate his supper undismayed:
I think myself the horse knew well
The bird came for the grains that fell.
For his eye was looking down,
And he danced the corn about
In his nose-bag, till the brown
Grains of corn were tumbled out;
And I fancy that he said,
“Eat it up, young Speckle-Head!”
The driver then came back again,
He climbed into the heavy dray;
And he tightened up the rein,
Cracked his whip and drove away.
But when the horse’s ribs were hit,
The sparrow did not care a bit.
***
«The Horse Of Your Heart» by William Henry Ogilvie
When you’ve ridden a four-year-old half of the day
And, foam to the fetlock, they lead him away,
With a sigh of contentment you watch him depart
While you tighten the girths on the horse of your heart.
There is something between you that both understand
As it thrills an old message from bit-bar to hand.
As he changes his feet in that plunge of desire
To the thud of his hoofs all your courage takes fire.
When an afternoon fox is away, when begins
The rush down the headland that edges the whins,
When you challenge the Field, making sure of a start,
Would you ask any horse but this horse of your heart?
There’s the rasping big double a green one would shirk,
But the old fellow knows it as part of his work;
He has shortened his stride, he has measured the task,
He is up, on, and over as clean as you’d ask.
There’s the water before you-no novice’s test,
But a jump to try deeply the boldest and best;
Just a tug at the leather, a lift of the ear,
And the old horse is over it-twenty foot clear.
There is four foot of wall and a take-off in plough,
And you’re glad you are riding no tenderfoot now
But a seasoned campaigner, a master of art,
The perfect performer-the horse of your heart.
For here’s where the raw one will falter and baulk,
And here’s where the tyro is pulled to a walk,
But the horse of your heart never dwells or demurs
And is over the top to a touch of the spurs.
To you who ride young ones half-schooled and half-broke,
What joy to find freedom a while from your yoke!
What bliss to be launched with the luck of the start
On the old one, the proved one, the horse of your heart !
***
«The Horses» by Katherine Lee Bates
What was our share in the sinning,
That we must share the doom?
Sweet was our life’s beginning
In the spicy meadow-bloom,
With children’s hands to pet us
And kindly tones to call.
To-day the red spurs fret us
Against the bayonet wall.
What had we done, our masters,
That you sold us into hell?
Our terrors and disasters
Have filled your pockets well.
You feast on our starvation;
Your laughter is our groan.
Have horses then no nation,
No country of their own?
What are we, we your horses,
So loyal where we serve,
Fashioned of noble forces
All sensitive with nerve?
Torn, agonized, we wallow
On the blood-bemired sod;
And still the shiploads follow.
Have horses then no God?
***
«The Last Leap» by Adam Lindsay Gordon
All is over! fleet career,
Dash of greyhound slipping thongs,
Flight of falcon, bound of deer,
Mad hoof-thunder in our rear,
Cold air rushing up our lungs,
Din of many tongues.
Once again, one struggle good,
One vain effort;—he must dwell
Near the shifted post, that stood
Where the splinters of the wood,
Lying in the torn tracks, tell
How he struck and fell.
Crest where cold drops beaded cling,
Small ear drooping, nostril full,
Glazing to a scarlet ring,
Flanks and haunches quivering,
Sinews stiffening, void and null,
Dumb eyes sorrowful.
Satin coat that seems to shine
Duller now, black braided tress
That a softer hand than mine
Far away was wont to twine,
That in meadows far from this
Softer lips might kiss.
All is over! this is death,
And I stand to watch thee die,
Brave old horse! with bated breath
Hardly drawn through tight-clenched teeth,
Lip indented deep, but eye
Only dull and dry.
Musing on the husk and chaff
Gathered where life’s tares are sown,
Thus I speak, and force a laugh,
That is half a sneer and half
An involuntary groan,
In a stifled tone—
‘Rest, old friend! thy day, though rife
With its toil, hath ended soon;
We have had our share of strife,
Tumblers in the masque of life,
In the pantomime of noon
Clown and pantaloon.
‘With a flash that ends thy pain,
Respite and oblivion blest
Come to greet thee. I in vain
Fall: I rise to fall again:
Thou hast fallen to thy rest—
And thy fall is best!’
***
«The Listeners» by Walter de la Mare
“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grass
Of the forest’s ferny floor;
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
“Is there anybody there?” he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
‘Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:–
“Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,” he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
***
«The Man And His Horse» by Anne Kingsmill Finch
Within a Meadow, on the way,
A sordid Churl resolv’d to stay,
And give his Horse a Bite;
Purloining so his Neighbours Hay,
That at the Inn he might not pay
For Forage all the Night.
With Heart’s content th’ unloaded Steed
Began to neigh, and frisk, and feed;
For nothing more he car’d,
Since none of all his Master’s breed
E’er found such Pasture, at their need,
Or half so well had far’d.
When, in the turning of a Hand,
Out comes the Owner of the Land,
And do’s the Trespass eye;
Which puts poor Bayard to a Stand,
For now his Master do’s command
Him to return and fly.
But Hunger quick’ning up his Wit,
And Grass being sweeter than the Bit,
He to the Clown reply’d;
Shall I for you this Dinner quit,
Who to my Back hard Burdens fit,
And to the Death wou’d ride?
No; shou’d I as a Stray be found,
And seiz’d upon forbidden Ground,
I’ll on this Spot stand still;
For tho’ new Riders shou’d abound,
(Or did Mankind this Field surround)
They cou’d but use me ill.
Urge no Man to despair; lest in the Fit
He with some Counterblow thy Head may hit.
***
«The Old Horse in the City» by Vachel Lindsay
The moon’s a peck of corn. It lies
Heaped up for me to eat.
I wish that I might climb the path
And taste that supper sweet.
Men feed me straw and scanty grain
And beat me till I’m sore.
Some day I’ll break the halter-rope
And smash the stable-door,
Run down the street and mount the hill
Just as the corn appears.
I’ve seen it rise at certain times
For years and years and years.
***
«The Phantom Horsewoman» by Thomas Hardy
Queer are the ways of a man I know:
He comes and stands
In a careworn craze,
And looks at the sands
And in the seaward haze
With moveless hands
And face and gaze,
Then turns to go…
And what does he see when he gazes so?
They say he sees as an instant thing
More clear than today,
A sweet soft scene
That once was in play
By that briny green;
Yes, notes alway
Warm, real, and keen,
What his back years bring-
A phantom of his own figuring.
Of this vision of his they might say more:
Not only there
Does he see this sight,
But everywhere
In his brain-day, night,
As if on the air
It were drawn rose bright-
Yea, far from that shore
Does he carry this vision of heretofore:
A ghost-girl-rider. And though, toil-tried,
He withers daily,
Time touches her not,
But she still rides gaily
In his rapt thought
On that shagged and shaly
Atlantic spot,
And as when first eyed
Draws rein and sings to the swing of the tide.
***
«The Undertaker’s Horse» by Rudyard Kipling
The eldest son bestrides him,
And the pretty daughter rides him,
And I meet him oft o’ mornings on the Course;
And there kindles in my bosom
An emotion chill and gruesome
As I canter past the Undertaker’s Horse.
Neither shies he nor is restive,
But a hideously suggestive
Trot, professional and placid, he affects;
And the cadence of his hoof-beats
To my mind this grim reproof beats: —
“Mend your pace, my friend, I’m coming. Who’s the next?”
Ah! stud-bred of ill-omen,
I have watched the strongest go — men
Of pith and might and muscle — at your heels,
Down the plantain-bordered highway,
(Heaven send it ne’er be my way!)
In a lacquered box and jetty upon wheels.
Answer, sombre beast and dreary,
Where is Brown, the young, the cheery,
Smith, the pride of all his friends and half the Force?
You were at that last dread dak
We must cover at a walk,
Bring them back to me, O Undertaker’s Horse!
With your mane unhogged and flowing,
And your curious way of going,
And that businesslike black crimping of your tail,
E’en with Beauty on your back, Sir,
Pacing as a lady’s hack, Sir,
What wonder when I meet you I turn pale?
It may be you wait your time, Beast,
Till I write my last bad rhyme, Beast —
Quit the sunlight, cut the rhyming, drop the glass —
Follow after with the others,
Where some dusky heathen smothers
Us with marigolds in lieu of English grass.
Or, perchance, in years to follow,
I shall watch your plump sides hollow,
See Carnifex (gone lame) become a corse —
See old age at last o’erpower you,
And the Station Pack devour you,
I shall chuckle then, O Undertaker’s Horse!
But to insult, jibe, and quest, I’ve
Still the hideously suggestive
Trot that hammers out the unrelenting text,
And I hear it hard behind me
In what place soe’er I find me: —
“‘Sure to catch you sooner or later. Who’s the next?”
***
«Waterin’ Th’ Horses» by Margaret E. Sangster
I took th’ horses to th’ brook—to water ’em you know,
Th’ air was cold with just a touch o’ frost;
And as we went a-joggin’ down I couldn’t help but think,
O’ city folk an’ all the things they lost.
O’ cause they have their lighted streets—their Great White Way an’ such,
O’ course they have their buildings large an’ tall;
But, my! they never know th’ joy o’ ridin’ ter th’ brook,
An’ somehow I don’t envy ’em at all!
Perhaps I’d like it—for awhile—to hear th’ songs an’ laughter,
But somehow, I don’t know exactly why;
I’d feel th’ country callin’ me; I’d long again fer silence,
An’ fer God’s mountains, blue against the sky.
I took th’ horses to th’ brook—to water ’em you know,
Th’ day was pretty as a day can be;
An’ as we went a-joggin’ down I couldn’t help but think,
O’ city folk an’ all they never see!
***
«White Horses» by Rudyard Kipling
Where run your colts at pasture?
Where hide your mares to breed?
‘Mid bergs about the Ice-cap
Or wove Sargasso weed;
By chartless reef and channel,
Or crafty coastwise bars,
But most the ocean-meadows
All purple to the stars!
Who holds the rein upon you?
The latest gale let free.
What meat is in your mangers?
The glut of all the sea.
‘Twixt tide and tide’s returning
Great store of newly dead, —
The bones of those that faced us,
And the hearts of those that fled.
Afar, off-shore and single,
Some stallion, rearing swift,
Neighs hungry for new fodder,
And calls us to the drift:
Then down the cloven ridges —
A million hooves unshod —
Break forth the mad White Horses
To seek their meat from God!
Girth-deep in hissing water
Our furious vanguard strains —
Through mist of mighty tramplings
Roll up the fore-blown manes —
A hundred leagues to leeward,
Ere yet the deep is stirred,
The groaning rollers carry
The coming of the herd!
Whose hand may grip your nostrils —
Your forelock who may hold?
E’en they that use the broads with us —
The riders bred and bold,
That spy upon our matings,
That rope us where we run —
They know the strong White Horses
From father unto son.
We breathe about their cradles,
We race their babes ashore,
We snuff against their thresholds,
We nuzzle at their door;
By day with stamping squadrons,
By night in whinnying droves,
Creep up the wise White Horses,
To call them from their loves.
And come they for your calling?
No wit of man may save.
They hear the loosed White Horses
Above their fathers’ grave;
And, kin of those we crippled,
And, sons of those we slew,
Spur down the wild white riders
To school the herds anew.
What service have ye paid them,
Oh jealous steeds and strong?
Save we that throw their weaklings,
Is none dare work them wrong;
While thick around the homestead
Our snow-backed leaders graze —
A guard behind their plunder,
And a veil before their ways.
With march and countermarchings —
With weight of wheeling hosts —
Stray mob or bands embattled —
We ring the chosen coasts:
And, careless of our clamour
That bids the stranger fly,
At peace with our pickets
The wild white riders lie.
Trust ye that curdled hollows —
Trust ye the neighing wind —
Trust ye the moaning groundswell —
Our herds are close behind!
To bray your foeman’s armies —
To chill and snap his sword —
Trust ye the wild White Horses,
The Horses of the Lord!
***
«Wild Horse of the Prairies» by Isaac McLellan
For other scenes their lights expand,
Out in the savage western land,
Where wildernesses lone and grand,
Their awful glooms extend;
Far where the Rocky Mounts upthrow
Their pinnacles of rock and snow,
White cones, whereon the sunset’s glow,
Its roseate hues doth blend.
Around them, woods primeval press,
Around them, pastures measureless,
Waved by the idle wind’s caress,
Reach th’ horizon’s edge.
In dark ravine and gulch the bear
And tiger-cat have made their lair,
The bison range the meadows there,
To browse the bending sedge.
O’er open plain, in leafy dell,
In hollow vale, on upland swell,
The wild steeds of the prairies dwell,
Free as the mountain wind;
No iron bit or curb have they,
No galling spur, no trappings gay,
No rider to control their way,
Their untam’d limbs to bind.
Free as the eagle cleaves through space,
They curvet or they join in race,
Fleeter than wild beasts of the chase,
A vast unnumbered throng;
They crop the dewy grass at will,
In ice cold waters drink their fill,
Scour the wild plain or sweep the hill,
Unscarr’d by whip or thong.
Yet comes at times a yelling crew,
The savage with his wild halloo,
The painted Blackfoot or Sioux,
All greedy for the spoil;
It were a thrilling sight to see
Those lawless riders fierce and free,
Each swinging with a madden’d glee,
The lariat’s twisting coil.
On, on the frantic horsemen sweep,
On, on the snorting wild steeds leap,
Down flowery slope, o’er wooded steep,
Pursuers and pursued;
Then far th’ unerring noose is thrown,
The stately bay or lusty roan
Fall captive, panting, with a groan,
All vanquish’d and subdued.
***
«Winter Evening» by Archibald Lampman
To-night the very horses springing by
Toss gold from whitened nostrils. In a dream
The streets that narrow to the westward gleam
Like rows of golden palaces; and high
From all the crowded chimneys tower and die
A thousand aureoles. Down in the west
The brimming plains beneath the sunset rest,
One burning sea of gold. Soon, soon shall fly
The glorious vision, and the hours shall feel
A mightier master; soon from height to height,
With silence and the sharp unpitying stars,
Stern creeping frosts, and winds that touch like steel,
Out of the depth beyond the eastern bars,
Glittering and still shall come the awful night.
