Horses Poem by Edwin Muir

Horses

Rating: 3.3


Those lumbering horses in the steady plough,
On the bare field - I wonder, why, just now,
They seemed terrible, so wild and strange,
Like magic power on the stony grange.

Perhaps some childish hour has come again,
When I watched fearful, through the blackening rain,
Their hooves like pistons in an ancient mill
Move up and down, yet seem as standing still.

Their conquering hooves which trod the stubble down
Were ritual that turned the field to brown,
And their great hulks were seraphims of gold,
Or mute ecstatic monsters on the mould.

And oh the rapture, when, one furrow done,
They marched broad-breasted to the sinking sun!
The light flowed off their bossy sides in flakes;
The furrows rolled behind like struggling snakes.

But when at dusk with steaming nostrils home
They came, they seemed gigantic in the gloam,
And warm and glowing with mysterious fire
That lit their smouldering bodies in the mire.

Their eyes as brilliant and as wide as night
Gleamed with a cruel apocalyptic light,
Their manes the leaping ire of the wind
Lifted with rage invisible and blind.

Ah, now it fades! It fades! And I must pine
Again for the dread country crystalline,
Where the blank field and the still-standing tree
Were bright and fearful presences to me.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Just josh lawson 08 February 2019

Good video pf this on city legends youtube channel it goes into depth about hiw this poem came about

0 0 Reply
ryan just ryan 13 November 2017

poem sucks I only on it to do school work ode

3 6 Reply
Susan Williams 03 October 2015

Muir is the Enchanter here- spinning magic with his verse.

31 2 Reply
Brian Jani 10 May 2014

This is my favourite poem from you

9 11 Reply
bling blong 16 January 2020

love you too

0 0
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Edwin Muir

Edwin Muir

Orkney / Scotland
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