HORSE

When we think of the animals which have been widely domesticated, some of these species still exist but are often rare in the wild, while others have been radically changed through human contact. It is not surprising that there are many more poems and other writings about dogs, cats and horses than about other species, especially if domestication has led to animals becoming pets as well as working alongside their humans.

This is especially true for a handful of creatures who have maintained various roles in human service. Horses have lost many of their functions to machinery and become recreational pets, but they are still used  as transport, herding and pack animals in parts of the world , and they were still part of warfare until the mid-twentieth century. Poetry to honor the horse is therefore rich and plentiful, from ancient times until now. As one would expect, this section needs to be large and diverse, and in our format it certainly does not need to be limited.  

Shakespeare's "Henry V" is his most evocative lines on the warhorse. In the famous prologue the horse has to be summoned  by the imagination:

Think when we talk of horses, that you see them

Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;

Later, before the climactic battle between the English and the French, the Dauphin's lines seem to me to be the ultimate testosterone-fueled tribute of the mounted warrior:

 

DAUPHIN

What a long night is this! I will not change my

horse with any that treads but on four pasterns.

Ca, ha! he bounds from the earth, as if his

entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus,

chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I

soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth

sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his

hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.

ORLEANS

He's of the colour of the nutmeg.

DAUPHIN

And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for

Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull

elements of earth and water never appear in him, but

only in Patient stillness while his rider mounts

him: he is indeed a horse; and all other jades you

may call beasts.

Constable

Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.

DAUPHIN

It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the

bidding of a monarch and his countenance enforces homage.

ORLEANS

No more, cousin.

DAUPHIN

Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the

rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary

deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as

fluent as the sea: turn the sands into eloquent

tongues, and my horse is argument for them all:

'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for

a sovereign's sovereign to ride on; and for the

world, familiar to us and unknown to lay apart

their particular functions and wonder at him. I

once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus:

'Wonder of nature,'

He has shaped man’s world

Ambition’s throne of power

Made hunters fly, made empires

The noblest of all

The patient giant pulling the plough

Sustains us, harvest to harvest

(The) spirit of the wind

The echo of his gait

In hollow dawn streets

Cold stone and brick

Milkman’s clinking bottles

Proudly astride him

The loping marathoner

Halfway to the sky

Can you hear them

Jostling on the horizon

A distant rumble?

Dark Horses

Bearing the cloaked four

No imaginary white chargers

Swifter than the wind