On the way back from visiting the animal sanctuary, granddaughter Ciara (10) says "Granddad, the horses were smashing, say a horse poem". So I do, and she and granddaughter Hannah (11) both like it. Grandson Edward (7) not so sure, until we go over again the part where the horse in alien lands smells the sea and hurls his rider - yeah, that's cool after all. Opportunity here also for a geography lesson - where's the Camargue? - and mythology - Neptune - mathematics - leagues - and other grandfatherly sneaky stuff. Anyone got any more horse poetry?

Horses on the Camargue
by Roy Campbell

In the grey wastes of dread,
The haunt of shattered gulls where nothing moves
But in a shroud of silence like the dead,
I heard a sudden harmony of hooves,
And, turning, saw afar
A hundred snowy horses unconfined,
The silver runaways of Neptune's car
Racing, spray-curled, like waves before the wind.
Sons of the Mistral, fleet
As him with whose strong gusts they love to flee,
Who shd the flying thunders on their feet
And plumed them with the snortings of the sea;
Theirs is no earlthy breed
Who only haunts the verges of the earth
And only on the sea's salt herbage feed-
Surely the great white breakers gave them birth.
For awhen for years a slave,
A horse of the Camargue, in alien lands,
Should catch some far-off fragrance of the wave
Carried far inland from this native sands,
Many have told the tale
Of how in fury, foaming at the rein,
He hurls his rider; and with lifted tail,
With coal-red eyes and catarcating mane,
Heading his course for home,
Though sixty foreign leagues before him sweep,
Will never rest until he breathes the foam
And hears the native thunder of the deep.
And when the great gusts rise
And lash their anger on these arid coasts,
When the scared gulls career with mournful cries
And whirl across the waste like driven ghosts;
When hail and fire convege,
The only souls to which they srike no pain
Are the white crested fillies of the surge
And the white horses of the windy plain.
Then in their strength and pride
The stallions of the wilderness rejoice;
They feel their Master's trident in their side,
And high and shrill they answer to his voice.
With white tails smoking free,
Long streaming manes, and arching necks, they show
Their kinship to their sisters of the sea-
And forward hurl their thunderbolts of snow.
Still out of hardship bred,
Spirits of power and beauty and delight
Have ever on such frugal pasture fed
And loved to course with tempests through the night.

Stephen

this one always brings back memories of childhood - the long hot summers...


The Centaur

The summer that I was ten --
Can it be there was only one
summer that I was ten?

It must have been a long one then --
each day I'd go out to choose
a fresh horse from my stable

which was a willow grove
down by the old canal.
I'd go on my two bare feet.

But when, with my brother's jack-knife,
I had cut me a long limber horse
with a good thick knob for a head,

and peeled him slick and clean
except a few leaves for the tail,
and cinched my brother's belt

around his head for a rein,
I'd straddle and canter him fast
up the grass bank to the path,

trot along in the lovely dust
that talcumed over his hoofs,
hiding my toes, and turning

his feet to swift half-moons.
The willow knob with the strap
jouncing between my thighs

was the pommel and yet the poll
of my nickering pony's head.
My head and my neck were mine,

yet they were shaped like a horse.
My hair flopped to the side
like the mane of a horse in the wind.

My forelock swung in my eyes,
my neck arched and I snorted.
I shied and skittered and reared,

stopped and raised my knees,
pawed at the ground and quivered.
My teeth bared as we wheeled

and swished through the dust again.
I was the horse and the rider,
and the leather I slapped to his rump

spanked my own behind.
Doubled, my two hoofs beat
a gallop along the bank,

the wind twanged in my mane,
my mouth squared to the bit.
And yet I sat on my steed

quiet, negligent riding,
my toes standing the stirrups,
my thighs hugging his ribs.

At a walk we drew up to the porch.
I tethered him to a paling.
Dismounting, I smoothed my skirt

and entered the dusky hall.
My feet on the clean linoleum
left ghostly toes in the hall.

Where have you been? said my mother.
Been riding, I said from the sink,
and filled me a glass of water.

What's that in your pocket? she said.
Just my knife. It weighted my pocket
and stretched my dress awry.

Go tie back your hair, said my mother,
and Why Is your mouth all green?
Rob Roy, he pulled some clover
as we crossed the field, I told her.

May Swenson (1919 - 1989)

Not horses, but zebras. Roy, again.

Nobody else got gee-gee poems?

Roy Campbell (1901-1957)
THE ZEBRAS
From the dark woods that breathe of fallen showers,
Harnessed with level rays in golden reins,
The zebras draw the dawn across the plains
Wading knee-deep among the scarlet flowers.
The sunlight, zithering their flanks with fire,
Flashes between the shadows as they pass
Barred with electric tremors through the grass
Like wind along the gold strings of a lyre.

Into the flushed air snorting rosy plumes
That smoulder round their feet in drifting fumes,
With dove-like voices call the distant fillies,
While round the herds the stallion wheels his flight,
Engine of beauty volted with delight,
To roll his mare among the trampled lilies.

Here's another Australian one.

pam

The Man from Snowy River
There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses — he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.
There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow;
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up —
He would go wherever horse and man could go.
And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand,
No better horseman ever held the reins;
For never horse could throw him while the saddle-girths would stand,
He learnt to ride while droving on the plains.

And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast,
He was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony — three parts thoroughbred at least —
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
He was hard and tough and wiry — just the sort that won’t say die —
There was courage in his quick impatient tread;
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.

But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, ‘That horse will never do
For a long and tiring gallop — lad, you’d better stop away,
Those hills are far too rough for such as you.’
So he waited sad and wistful — only Clancy stood his friend —
‘I think we ought to let him come,’ he said;
‘I warrant he’ll be with us when he’s wanted at the end,
For both his horse and he are mountain bred.

‘He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko’s side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough,
Where a horse’s hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen.’

So he went — they found the horses by the big mimosa clump —
They raced away towards the mountain’s brow,
And the old man gave his orders, ‘Boys, go at them from the jump,
No use to try for fancy riding now.
And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.
Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,
For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,
If once they gain the shelter of those hills.’

So Clancy rode to wheel them — he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
And he raced his stock-horse past them, and he made the ranges ring
With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,
And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash,
And off into the mountain scrub they flew.

Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black
Resounded to the thunder of their tread,
And the stockwhips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back
From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.
And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way,
Where mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;
And the old man muttered fiercely, ‘We may bid the mob good day,
No man can hold them down the other side.’

When they reached the mountain’s summit, even Clancy took a pull,
It well might make the boldest hold their breath,
The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.
But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.

He sent the flint stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,
He cleared the fallen timber in his stride,
And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat —
It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.
Through the stringy barks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground,
Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound,
At the bottom of that terrible descent.

He was right among the horses as they climbed the further hill,
And the watchers on the mountain standing mute,
Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely, he was right among them still,
As he raced across the clearing in pursuit.
Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
In the ranges, but a final glimpse reveals
On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet,
With the man from Snowy River at their heels.

And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam.
He followed like a bloodhound on their track,
Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
For never yet was mountain horse a cur.

And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around the Overflow the reedbeds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
The man from Snowy River is a household word to-day,
And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.

--Banjo Paterson

From Carl Sandburg's "Bronzes":

The bronze General Grant riding a bronze horse in Lincoln Park
Shrivels in the sun by day when the motor cars whirr by in long processions
going
somewhere to keep appointment for dinner and matinees and buying and
selling
Though in the dusk and nightfall when high waves are piling
On the slabs of the promenade along the lake shore near by
I have seen the general dare the combers come closer
And make to ride his bronze horse out into the hoofs and guns of the
storm.

This one's a song, but appropriate

Skyball Paint was a Devil's saint, and his eyes was a fiery red
Good men have tried this horse to ride, but all of them are dead
Now, I won't brag, but I rode this nag til his blood began to boil
then I hit the ground and ate three pounds of good ol' Texas soil
singin' 'Hi-ho yippee ti oh' ride em high and down you go

I swore by heck I'd break his neck for the jolt he give my pride
so I threw my noose on that old cayouse and once more took a ride
I turned around, pretty soon I found his head where his tail should be
so I said says I 'Perhaps he's shy. Or he just don't care for me'
singin 'Hi-ho yippee ti oh' ride em high and down you go

In town one day I chanced to stray upon old Sheriff Jim
for a whoop an' a holler an' a counterfeit dollar I sold that nag to him
But when he plants the seat of his pants in Skyballs' leather chair
I'll bet two bits when Skyball quits ol' Jim will not be there
singin 'Hi-ho yippee ti oh' ride em high and down you go

Speaking of which, here is a bit of trivia you can recall the next time you see a statue of a horse and rider in the park.

If the horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

What if the person isn't dead yet? Is there a predictive effect?

pam

Absolutely. But in that case, the rear legs would be in the air, with the rider sailing over its head.

~
The Old Whim Horse
by Edward Dyson
~

He's an old grey horse, with his head bowed sadly,
And with dim old eyes and a queer roll aft,
With the off-fore sprung and the hind screwed badly,
And he bears all over the brands of graft;
And he lifts his head from the grass to wonder
Why by night and day the whim is still,
Why the silence is, and the stampers' thunder
Sounds forth no more from the shattered mill.

In that whim he worked when the night winds bellowed
On the riven summit of Giant's Hand,
And by day when prodigal Spring had yellowed
All the wide, long sweep of enchanted land;
And he knew his shift, and the whistle's warning,
And he knew the calls of the boys below;
Through the years, unbidden, at night or morning,
He had taken his stand by the old whim bow.
But the whim stands still, and the wheeling swallow
In the silent shaft hangs her home of clay,
And the lizards flirt and the swift snakes follow
O'er the grass-grown brace in the summer day;

And the corn springs high in the cracks and corners
Of the forge, and down where the timber lies;
And the crows are perched like a band of mourners
On the broken hut on the Hermit's Rise.
All the hands have gone, for the rich reef paid out,
And the company waits till the calls come in;
But the old grey horse, like the claim, is played out,
And no market's near for his bones and skin.
So they let him live, and they left him grazing
By the creek, and oft in the evening dim
I have seen him stand on the rises, gazing
At the ruined brace and the rotting whim.

The floods rush high in the gully under,
And the lightnings lash at the shrinking trees,
Or the cattle down from the ranges blunder
As the fires drive by on the summer breeze.
Still the feeble horse at the right hour wanders
To the lonely ring, though the whistle's dumb,
And with hanging head by the bow he ponders
Where the whim boy's gone -- why the shifts don't come.
But there comes a night when he sees lights glowing
In the roofless huts and the ravaged mill,
When he hears again all the stampers going --
Though the huts are dark and the stampers still:

When he sees the steam to the black roof clinging
As its shadows roll on the silver sands,
And he knows the voice of his driver singing,
And the knocker's clang where the braceman stands.
See the old horse take, like a creature dreaming,
On the ring once more his accustomed place;
But the moonbeams full on the ruins streaming
Show the scattered timbers and grass-grown brace.
Yet HE hears the sled in the smithy falling,
And the empty truck as it rattles back,
And the boy who stands by the anvil, calling;
And he turns and backs, and he "takes up slack".
While the old drum creaks, and the shadows shiver

As the wind sweeps by, and the hut doors close,
And the bats dip down in the shaft or quiver
In the ghostly light, round the grey horse goes;
And he feels the strain on his untouched shoulder,
Hears again the voice that was dear to him,
Sees the form he knew -- and his heart grows bolder
As he works his shift by the broken whim.
He hears in the sluices the water rushing
As the buckets drain and the doors fall back;
When the early dawn in the east is blushing,
He is limping still round the old, old track.

Now he pricks his ears, with a neigh replying
To a call unspoken, with eyes aglow,
And he sways and sinks in the circle, dying;
From the ring no more will the grey horse go.
In a gully green, where a dam lies gleaming,
And the bush creeps back on a worked-out claim,
And the sleepy crows in the sun sit dreaming
On the timbers grey and a charred hut frame,
Where the legs slant down, and the hare is squatting
In the high rank grass by the dried-up course,
Nigh a shattered drum and a king-post rotting
Are the bleaching bones of the old grey horse.

Pre-industrial Austrailia gave us numerous poets, the most notable of which are "Banjo" Paterson and Henry Lawson. It was a colorful time in a colorful land to wit I have posted an Anthology of Austrailian poetry and "... World Was Wide" by Lawson at poetics.net. (Both are book legnth pages, so wait until the pages load before clicking on any intra-page link.) If it be your interest, you will find quite a number of horse and horse related poems.

The Old Whim Horse is one of my favorite "animal" poems. E. Dyson captured his spirit...

poetics.net
Elliot

Station Songs and Droving Ditties


'Station songs and droving ditties!'
Strung together on the track
Far away from coastal cities
In the droving days - outback;

Some on distant water-courses
'Neath the blazing Northern sun,
When returning with the horses
To a far North-western run;

Some were fashioned in the gloaming
While the morrow's damper cooked;
Some were penned by rivers roaming
Where the wily fish was hooked;

Ere the midday 'quart' was ready
And an hour was slow to pass
Whilst the nags were feeding steady
on the ripening Mitchell grass;

Or, when horse bells chimed and tinkled
Where the feed was drenched with dew,
And the wintry white stars twinkled
High above in heaven's blue.

Then - of stockwhips' ring and rattle
In the range - some memory flashed;
Or of night rides after cattle
When the gidya branches crashed.

And a rhyme perchance I've come by
Recollecting some past ride -
When we trapped the flying brumby
On the Southern Queensland side.

Jingles! - neither good nor clever -
Just a rover's random rhymes,
But they'll serve their turn if ever
They recall the old bush times,

When a bushman, in his leisure,
Reads them 'neath the shady pine;
Or they give one moment's pleasure
To some old bush mate of mine.


Harry 'Breaker' Morant (1864-1902)

I think my chickens are, slowly but surely, coming home to roost. Proudly but shy, my grandchild brought me this to show you - it was in an anthology called "7 Themes in Modern Verse" by Maurice Wollman.

Edwin Muir
The Horses

Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.

The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
"They'll molder away and be like other loam."
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers' land.

And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers' time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship.
In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half a dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads,
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.

Stephen

Lovely!

pam

Stephen-


You sure know how to pick em.



I'm wondering if this threads' reappearance will inspire a submission from Terry.

Time for another - but this time, maybe not so sweet ...

Song of Napalm
For my Wife

After the storm, after the rain stopped pounding,
We stood in the doorway watching horses
Walk off lazily across the pasture's hill.
We stared through the black screen,
Our vision altered by the distance
So I thought I saw a mist
Kicked up around their hooves when they faded
Like cut-out horses
Away from us.
The grass was never more blue in that light, more
Scarlet; beyond the pasture
Trees scraped their voices into the wind, branches
Criss-crossed the sky like barbed wire
But you said they were only branches.

Okay. The storm stopped pounding.
I am trying to say this straight: for once
I was sane enough to pause and breathe
Outside my wild plans and after the hard rain
I turned my back on the old curses. I believed
They swung finally away from me . . .

But still the branches are wire
And thunder is the pounding mortar,
Still I close my eyes and see the girl
Running from her village, napalm
Stuck to her dress like jelly,
Her hands reaching for the no one
Who waits in waves of heat before her.

So I can keep on living,
So I can stay here beside you,
I try to imagine she runs down the road and wings
Beat inside her until she rises
Above the stinking jungle and her pain
Eases, and your pain, and mine.

But the lie swings back again.
The lie works only as long as it takes to speak
And the girl runs only as far
As the napalm allows
Until her burning tendons and crackling
Muscles draw her up
Into that final position
Burning bodies so perfectly assume. Nothing
Can change that, she is burned behind my eyes
And not your good love and not the rain-swept air
And not the jungle green
Pasture unfolding before us can deny it.

Bruce Weigl

Stephen

Stephen-

I guess you had to stick this in the 'Horses' thread because there is no 'Napalm' thread.


Not a good way to spend a lazy Sunday.


Jack

I gess you like horses. I like them to.But I don't just like horses I like all most all animaland you most like stundying then. Same with me.But like the study all most all animals.

Philip Larkin: At Grass
Edwin Muir: The Horses
Robinson Jeffers: Roan Stallion

I know the Larkin and the Muir very well, but not the Jeffers. I can't find the text online - can you give me a website and/or the text please?

Stephen

'fraid not; it was one of Jeffers big poems- several dozen pages long!- which at my typing speed...It's in his Selected Poems (which at more than seven hundred pages must be a leading candidate for the longest selected ever).

Hi, could you tell me who wrote this poem and any other relevant information on him.

Over the river by gravel and gum,
to a thunder of hoofbeats hard driven they come,
a host of young horses and riders that sway.
like a reed to the wind
and are round and away
When they find the brumby has broken again
to challange the whips to the width of a plain



or something like that

Cheers Lucia

Hi, could you tell me who wrote this poem and any other relevant information on him.

Over the river by gravel and gum,
to a thunder of hoofbeats hard driven they come,
a host of young horses and riders that sway.
like a reed to the wind
and are round and away
When they find the brumby has broken again
to challange the whips to the width of a plain



or something like that

Cheers Lucia

Lucia, the word 'gum' indicates an Australian writer. Putting the first line into Google returns an enquiry for the same verse that someone else coincidentally made earlier this month on an Australian Bush Verse message board (no response yet).

The unusual phrase 'Gravel and Gum' was used as the title of a book by Nancy Keesing about Australian pioneers, published by Macmillan in 1966, a couple of copies of which are currently in stock with Morgan's Rare Books in Adelaide (tel: 61 3 8232 0939). It's a long shot, but if the verse you have cited is used as a frontispiece quotation by Keesing, you might be able to find out the poet's name by phoning some helpful person at Morgan's.

Another memorable horse poem from 'Banjo' Paterson:

In the Droving Days

‘Only a pound,’ said the auctioneer,
‘Only a pound; and I’m standing here
Selling this animal, gain or loss.
Only a pound for the drover’s horse;
One of the sort that was never afraid,
One of the boys of the Old Brigade;
Thoroughly honest and game, I’ll swear,
Only a little the worse for wear;
Plenty as bad to be seen in town,
Give me a bid and I’ll knock him down;
Sold as he stands, and without recourse,
Give me a bid for the drover’s horse.’

Loitering there in an aimless way
Somehow I noticed the poor old grey,
Weary and battered and screwed, of course,
Yet when I noticed the old grey horse,
The rough bush saddle, and single rein
Of the bridle laid on his tangled mane,
Straightway the crowd and the auctioneer
Seemed on a sudden to disappear,
Melted away in a kind of haze,
For my heart went back to the droving days.

Back to the road, and I crossed again
Over the miles of the saltbush plain —
The shining plain that is said to be
The dried-up bed of an inland sea,
Where the air so dry and so clear and bright
Refracts the sun with a wondrous light,
And out in the dim horizon makes
The deep blue gleam of the phantom lakes.

At dawn of day we would feel the breeze
That stirred the boughs of the sleeping trees,
And brought a breath of the fragrance rare
That comes and goes in that scented air;
For the trees and grass and the shrubs contain
A dry sweet scent on the saltbush plain.
For those that love it and understand,
The saltbush plain is a wonderland.
A wondrous country, where Nature’s ways
Were revealed to me in the droving days.

We saw the fleet wild horses pass,
And the kangaroos through the Mitchell grass,
The emu ran with her frightened brood
All unmolested and unpursued.
But there rose a shout and a wild hubbub
When the dingo raced for his native scrub,
And he paid right dear for his stolen meals
With the drover’s dogs at his wretched heels.
For we ran him down at a rattling pace,
While the packhorse joined in the stirring chase.
And a wild halloo at the kill we’d raise —
We were light of heart in the droving days.

‘Twas a drover’s horse, and my hand again
Made a move to close on a fancied rein.
For I felt the swing and the easy stride
Of the grand old horse that I used to ride
In drought or plenty, in good or ill,
That same old steed was my comrade still;
The old grey horse with his honest ways
Was a mate to me in the droving days.

When we kept our watch in the cold and damp,
If the cattle broke from the sleeping camp,
Over the flats and across the plain,
With my head bent down on his waving mane,
Through the boughs above and the stumps below
On the darkest night I could let him go
At a racing speed; he would choose his course,
And my life was safe with the old grey horse.
But man and horse had a favourite job,
When an outlaw broke from a station mob,
With a right good will was the stockwhip plied,
As the old horse raced at the straggler’s side,
And the greenhide whip such a weal would raise,
We could use the whip in the droving days.

. . . . .

‘Only a pound!’ and was this the end —
Only a pound for the drover’s friend.
The drover’s friend that had seen his day,
And now was worthless, and cast away
With a broken knee and a broken heart
To be flogged and starved in a hawker’s cart.
Well, I made a bid for a sense of shame
And the memories dear of the good old game.

‘Thank you? Guinea! and cheap at that!
Against you there in the curly hat!
Only a guinea, and one more chance,
Down he goes if there’s no advance,
Third, and the last time, one! two! three!’
And the old grey horse was knocked down to me.
And now he’s wandering, fat and sleek,
On the lucerne flats by the Homestead Creek;
I dare not ride him for fear he’d fall,
But he does a journey to beat them all,
For though he scarcely a trot can raise,
He can take me back to the droving days.

Oh God, thank you Ian. I just can't go anywhere near a horse sale. So many are sold for export to France, to suffer and die and be eaten. So many are sold for pennies to the gypsies and travellers, who mistreat them cruelly. What can I do? Cry, that's what.

Stephen

As a sensitive teacher who was known to cry on occasion, this one always got to me.
The Bronco That Would Not Be Broken

A little colt -- bronco, loaned to the farm
To be broken in time without fury or harm,
Yet black crows flew past you, shouting alarm,
Calling "Beware," with lugubrious singing...
The butterflies there in the bush were romancing,
The smell of the grass caught your soul in a trance,
So why be a-fearing the spurs and the traces,
O bronco that would not be broken of dancing?

You were born with the pride of the lords great and olden
Who danced, through the ages, in corridors golden.
In all the wide farm-place the person most human.
You spoke out so plainly with squealing and capering.
With whinnying, snorting, contorting, and prancing,
As you dodged your pursuers, looking askance.
With Greek-footed figures, and Parthenon paces.
O bronco that would not be broken of dancing.

The grasshoppers cheered. "Keep whirling," they said
The insolent sparrows called from the shed,
"If men will not laugh, make them wish they were dead."
But arch were your thoughts, all malice displacing,
Though the horse-killers came, with snake-whips advancing.
You bantered and cantered away from your last chance.
And they scourged you, with Hell in their speech and their faces,
O bronco that would not be broken of dancing.

"Nobody cares for you," rattled the crows,
As you dragged the whole reaper, next day, down the rows.
The three mules held back, yet you danced on your toes.
You pulled like a racer, and kept the mules chasing.
You tangled the harness with bright eyes side-glancing,
While the drunk driver bled you -- a pole for a lance --
And the giant mules bit at you -- keeping their places.
O bronco that would not be broken of dancing.

In that last afternoon your boyish heart broke.
The hot wind came down like a sledge-hammer stroke.
The blood-sucking flies to a rare feast awoke.
And they searched out your wounds, your death-warrant tracing.
And the merciful men, their religion enhancing,
Stopped the red reaper, to give you a chance.
Then you died on the prairie, and scorned all disgraces,
O bronco that would not be broken of dancing.

-- Vachel Lindsay

KD,
This last one got to me too.

JP

is this to answer that guys question on the dating web site by any chance?
Its by E R Murray in Australian Bush Ballards

I know I'm late getting out of the gate, but a horse book by a contenporary poet, Vicki Hearne, called nervous Horses, might be worhth looking at, even after your immediate interest in horse poems ages.

You're all a bunch of neigh-sayers !

nah.

I'll have to look for it- I loved her first book, Adam's Task. (Not poetry, but about animal communication. [www.goodbyemag.com] />
pam

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Burial of the Minnisink

On sunny slope and beechen swell,
The shadowed light of evening fell;
And, where the maple's leaf was brown,
With soft and silent lapse came down,
The glory, that the wood receives,
At sunset, in its golden leaves.

Far upward in the mellow light
Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white,
Around a far uplifted cone,
In the warm blush of evening shone;
An image of the silver lakes,
By which the Indian's soul awakes.

But soon a funeral hymn was heard
Where the soft breath of evening stirred
The tall, gray forest; and a band
Of stern in heart, and strong in hand,
Came winding down beside the wave,
To lay the red chief in his grave.

They sang, that by his native bowers
He stood, in the last moon of flowers,
And thirty snows had not yet shed
Their glory on the warrior's head;
But, as the summer fruit decays,
So died he in those naked days.

A dark cloak of the roebuck's skin
Covered the warrior, and within
Its heavy folds the weapons, made
For the hard toils of war, were laid;
The cuirass, woven of plaited reeds,
And the broad belt of shells and beads.

Before, a dark-haired virgin train
Chanted the death dirge of the slain;
Behind, the long procession came
Of hoary men and chiefs of fame,
With heavy hearts, and eyes of grief,
Leading the war-horse of their chief.

Stripped of his proud and martial dress,
Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless,
With darting eye, and nostril spread,
And heavy and impatient tread,
He came; and oft that eye so proud
Asked for his rider in the crowd.

They buried the dark chief; they freed
Beside the grave his battle steed;
And swift an arrow cleaved its way
To his stern heart! One piercing neigh
Arose, and, on the dead man's plain,
The rider grasps his steed again.


(no Johnny, it's not about leaky plumbing)

Les

Another reason why I love the net:


Just Horsing Around

His Honor rode merrily through the fair,
His mare rared up and stomped the mayor.

Assassination? The jury said, "Neigh."
They ruled it was just a one horse slay.

—Grandpa Tucker
Copyright ©1997 by Bob Tucker


Les

Les, you get a mini-haha for that one !

minihaha for your leaky plumbing...i liked the tucker !

Isn't it the best though, to literally have such info at your fingertips?
Ok, we didn't get the jetpaks and aren't living on the moon like they promised at the 64 Worlds Fair, but I'll take information anytime !

Here's the title poem from Vcki Hearne's Nervous Horse in an attachment. Thanks for your query; it brought me back to her poetry.

Here's yhrtitle poem to Hearne's nervous horses.

Hope the third try is a charm. Here's the title poem from Vcki Hearne's Nervous Horse in an attachment. Thanks for your query; it brought me back to her poetry.

Wilson 'Bob' Tucker or the Real Bob Tucker?

pam

What a fine eye you have for detail.

I've collected almost 200 poems about horses for a birthday book I've given to my daughter every year for the past four years. I'm running out of steam and would appreciate suggetions for my fifth anthology. I prefer poetry that is recognized as having merit, although I have included poems written by friends with literary prowess. Many thanks for ideas!

Anne, have you found anything on this thread you could use?
And it would help to have a list of the poems you've already used (excluding your, presumably, unpublished friends, of course).

Stephen

Anne, are you anthologising horse poems year after year, or just this time? (Either way, sounds like a more sensible present than buying your daughter a horse). There are lots of poems about horses by early Australian authors, but at the rate of 200 a year the merit may soon be mined out. It would help to know what you have collected already.

If you are planning on using The Man From Snowy River by A.B.('Banjo') Paterson, posted by Pam early in this thread, it's all 8-line stanzas. Separate the first two stanzas which have somehow run together in that post.

Ian

I am trying to locate a peom that was used at an elementary graduation in 1950. All I remember about the title are the words "Be A Thoroughbred" or "To Be A Thoroughbred". Sorry, I do not know the author. If you know of this peom, I would dearly love to have a copy of the words as this class will be having its 50th High School Reunion in April, 2005. Thank you so much. Mary Lee Handley High School, Fort Worth, Texas.

'Be a Thoroughbred' is a very common term, and difficult to search on. Do you remember any lines from the poem?

pam

"We come into this life all naked and bare.
We go through this life with worry and care,
We go from this life, we know not where,
But if you are a thoroughbred here,
You will be a thoroughbred there."

Is that it? It's credited to that Greek guy Anonymous
(man he was prolific)

and if I'm right, I will not mention that people can't google their way out of a paper bag

So, we mongrels have no hope fo better things in the hereafter, either! 'Nuff said.

Hey, I just POSTED it, I didn't say I agreed with it !

peeka boo!!!!\

can you send me as many horse poems possibly i need 357 !!!

thanx

sammi

[tinyurl.com] />
[tinyurl.com]

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.

Go right to the source and ask the horse
He'll give you the answer that you'll endorse.
He's always on a steady course.
Talk to Mr. Ed.

People yakkity yak a streak and waste your time of day
But Mister Ed will never speak unless he has something to say.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And this one'll talk 'til his voice is hoarse.
You never heard of a talking horse?

Well listen to this........ I am Mister Ed.

("Mister Ed" by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston

You are asking an awful lot in this busy season,
And presuming more in failing to give a reason.


Sammi, we all have needs. It's a matter of weighing priorities. Johnny and Hugh are obviously nicer than I am. Before I spend more time than this responding to your extraordinary request, can you give some explanation fuller than "peek aboo" as to what you regard as a horse poem, and what you need them for, and why you need 357 of them, and what efforts you have made towards collecting them yourself, and which ones you have collected. Failing that, I suggest you write to Father Xmas for them and hang out a sock.

He needs to know com-pelling force
that may drive your need for poems of horse
but unwilling to share
so be bold if you dare
tell him "go and have self-intercourse"

Here is another horse poem by a Slovenian poet Edvard Kocbek.

THE LIPPIZANER

A newspaper reports:
the Lippizaners collaborated
on a historical film.
A radio explains:
a millionaire had bought the Lippizaners,
the noble animals were quiet
throughout the journey over the Atlantic.
And a text book teaches:
the Lippizaners are graceful riding horses,
their origin is in the Karst, they are of supple hoof,
conceited trot, intelligent nature,
and obstinate fidelity.

But I have to add, my son,
that it isn't possible to fit these
restless animals into any set pattern:
it is good, when the day shines,
the Lippizaners are black foals.
And it is good, when the night reigns,
the Lippizaners are white mares,
but the best is,
when the day comes out of the night,
then the Lippizaners are the white and black buffoons,
the court fools of its Majesty,
Slovenian history.

Others have worshipped holy cows and dragons,
thousand-year-old turtles and winged lions,
unicorns, double-headed eagles and phoenixes,
but we've chosen the most beautiful animal,
which proved to be excellent on battlefields, in circuses,
harnessed to princesses and the Golden Monstrance,
therefore the emperors of Vienna spoke
French with skilful diplomats,
Italian with charming actresses,
Spanish with the infinite God,
and German with uneducated servants:
but with the horses they talked Slovene.

Remember, my child, how mysteriously
nature and history are bound together,
and how different are the driving forces of the spirit
of each of the world's peoples.
You know well that ours is the land of contests and races.
You, thus, understand why the white horses
from Noah's ark found a refuge on our pure ground,
why they became our holy animal,
why they entered into the legend of history,
and why they bring the life pulse to our future.
They incessantly search for our promised land
and are becoming our spirit's passionate saddle.

I endlessly sit on a black and white, horse.
my beloved son,
like a Bedouin chief
I blend with my animal,
I've been traveling on it all my life,
I sleep on it, and I dream on it,
and I'll die on it.
I learned all our prophesies
on the mysterious animal,
and this poem, too, I experienced
on its trembling back.

Nothing is darker than
clear speech,
and nothing more true than a poem
the intellect cannot seize,
heroes limp in the bright sun,
and sages stammer in the dark,
the buffoons, though, are changing into poets,
the winged Pegasi run faster and faster
above the caves of our old earth
jumping and pounding —
the impatient Slovenian animals
are still trying to awaken the legendary King Matjaz.

Those who don't know how to ride a horse,
should learn quickly
how to tame the fiery animal,
how to ride freely in a light saddle,
how to catch the harmony of the trot,
and above all to persist in the premonition,
for our horses came galloping from far away,
and they still have far to go:
motors tend to break down,
elephants eat too much,
our road is a long one,
and it is too far to walk.

I am looking for a suitable reading for a funeral service of an avid horse fan. He was a trainer and driver of harness horses, but also has an interest in gallopers.

Can anyone point me in the right direction please.

Many thanks
Gaileen Taumanu

Brings to mind Larry Levis'
"Anastasia and Sandman"
a much sadder poem.

Lisa

Perhaps part of 'The Horses' by Edwin Muir. It has a spiritual quality that might suit a funeral - but might not, depending on the person.
The Horses


by EDWIN MUIR


Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listn, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
"They'll molder away and be like other loam."
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers' land.
And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers' time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship.
In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half a dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads,
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.

Philip Larkin's At Greass is ostensibly about two retired racehorses and- like so much of Larkin- about death.
R B Cunningham Grahame [sp?] wrote a lot of prose meditations on the relationship of men and hoses. If there is a library handy it might be worth looking up.

Philip Larkin's At Grass

[plagiarist.com] />
"Anastasia and Sandman" Larry Levis

[www.poets.org] />
R B Cunninghame Grahame

[tinyurl.com]

Thanks so very much for the horse poetry! I'm still looking forward to any responses you all might have. Someone asked for all of the poems I've collected so far (going for 200). I'm considering posting them on a webpage, but I have to find out about copyright laws. I'll let you know as soon as I've figured it out. Oh! Songs about horses would also be acceptable! (My daughter, for whom this anthology is created each year to celebrate her birthday, is a horse lover and a musician.)

Anne, you could provide the information by posting on this Emule webpage just the titles, authors and sources of what you have already collected, omitting those already listed in this thread and any unpublished poems.



Post Edited (01-22-05 16:40)

Hi. We're looking for an old english poem of whom we don't know who wrote it. The following is a portion of the words in the poem.......

If wishes were horses then peasants would ride.

We hope your able to help, if not this is ok.

kind regards stephanie

I remember "If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets"

which I thought was Robert Heinlein, but it could be from something else

Here's what RhymeZone had:

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
If turnips were watches, I would wear one by my side.
And if "ifs" and "ands"
Were pots and pans,
There'd be no work for tinkers!




If you Google "If Wishes Were", you'd be startled by the number of choices !



Post Edited (02-05-05 23:38)

Stephen, beautiful!

If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets

was from Frank Herbert's Dune

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of --
but do it in private, and wash your hands afterwards.

- Lazarus Long

pam

Rub her feet

- Lazarus Long

I am trying to collect poetry about horses. If anyody knows of some good poems, please email me.
-Thanks

Sarah, click on flat view as the choice below this post. Then look at the selections already posted here. There are even more poems here:

[www.poemhunter.com] />

Les