Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LAND-HORSES AND SEA-HORSES, by GRACE E. TOLLEMACHE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LAND-HORSES AND SEA-HORSES, by                    
First Line: The patient horses of the plough
Last Line: The deathless horses of the deep!
Subject(s): Animals; Horses; Sea Horses


THE patient horses of the plough,
Dark-coloured like the new-turned soil,
Their meek, strong necks submissive bow
From dawn till dusk, at irksome toil,
Not heeding, though below they hear
How the sea-horses plunge and rear.

The magic horses of the sea
No voice of any master mind,
But fare all day untrammelled, free,
And none calls to them from behind;
Nor mark they moving on the cliff
The land-horses at labour stiff.

The sods of earth in silence yield
As the sharp-bladed ploughshare graves
Long furrows in the fallow field,
But the sea's still-resentful waves—
When the sea-horses through them pass—
Sunder with sound of shivered glass!

The soil's dim bloom is flecked with black
By ebon hordes of rooks and choughs
That follow in the ploughshare's track;
But from the sea's far-foamiug troughs,
Whiter than flakes of milky curds,
Flash the sea-horses' sacred birds.

The plough-horses with smoking sides
Turn home at twilight to their stall;
The tameless horses of the tides
Know not of shelter at nightfall,
For, never wearied, never sleep
The deathless horses of the deep!





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