Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MARCH-PATROL OF THE NAKED HEROES, by HERBERT S. GORMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MARCH-PATROL OF THE NAKED HEROES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hoofs of thunder, fetlocks splashed with sunrise
Last Line: In the morning.
Subject(s): Native Americans; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America


HOOFS of thunder, fetlocks splashed with sunrise,
in the early morning when the great cocks
Lift their crimson combs against the tawny
gold of morning,

And the flaring oak-trees rise like peacocks
From their crystal beds of dew and flourish
jewel-blazing tails against the day's eye,
and the voices

shouting through a mist of spinning arrows,
through a golden rain of burning spear-heads,
while the arrogant shrill trumpets mingle
brazen warnings.

See, to throbbing tambours, fevered tom-toms,
naked men on shaggy horses pressing
giant thighs against bright hide that glistens
in the sunlight,

hairy chests and open mouths of triumph,
back-flung locks and lifted arms and torsos
swaying in the green-gold fire of morning,
rippled muscles,

moving through the trees to throbbing thunder,
wheeling through the dust-dance of the white road,
twisting by the blue steel blade of water
where the red birds

rise like whirling puffs of flame, like blossoms
petalled with bright wings of fire, and whistle
glassy slivers of shrill sound at silence
and the river.

Chanting voices climb the jade-green terrace
of the morning and the horses whinney
splashing through the brittle reeds and stamping
by the current.

Naked heroes riding on great horses.
pounding Time to tatters with swift hoof-beats,
pass to hollow thunder in the day-spring,
in the morning.




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