Stallions In The Strand Poem by Jan Struther

AUTHORITY, with white-gloved hand,
Holds up the traffic in the Strand.
Obediently each well-trained wheel
Rolls to a standstill. I can feel
The bus mark time in every part.
More slowly throbs that bloodless heart,
Though still, without delight or zest,
Those steely entrails must digest
The food their lord administers;
And still the passionless cylinders
Repel, yet never quite escape,
The pistons' smooth and sterile rape.

Then comes the clump of hoofs. We peer
With craning necks, to know what's here,
And see, on huge deliberate feet,
Two shire-horse stallions cross the street.
They walk caparisoned in pride:
Under that suppleness of hide
Like tensile ropes the muscles run;
Their rounded haunches catch the sun
Like new-husked chestnuts, and their eyes
Are dark and bright as star-pricked skies.

So, at their own unhurried pace,
With arrogant strength and cumbrous grace
They swagger by; and, as they pass
My man-made steed of steel and glass,
Each arching crest, each splairging hoof
Conveys contemptuous reproof.

'Stand back!' they say. 'You boast indeed
A hardier frame, a swifter speed-
But when has bus been known to breed?
Your iron muscles may not tire-
But did those iron loins' desire
In lusty conquest ever yet
Another motor-bus beget?
Stand back, you eunuch slave!' they say.
'We are earth's great ones. Ho! Make way!'

With swinging gait, with tossing mane,
They breast the slope of Drury Lane:
Authority's impartial hand
Lets loose the traffic in the Strand.