Horse Poems | Poemist

Popular Horse Poems

Gentlemen-Rankers

by Rudyard Kipling

To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin,
But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind.
We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!

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The Ballad Of Father Gilligan

by William Butler Yeats

The old priest Peter Gilligan
Was weary night and day
For half his flock were in their beds
Or under green sods lay.

Once, while he nodded in a chair
At the moth-hour of the eve
Another poor man sent for him,
And he began to grieve.

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Holy Sonnet Xii: Why Are We By All Creatures Waited On?

by John Donne

Why are we by all creatures waited on?
Why do the prodigal elements supply
Life and food to me, being more pure than I,
Simple, and further from corruption?
Why brook'st thou, ignorant horse, subjection?
Why dost thou, bull, and bore so seelily,
Dissemble weakness, and by one man's stroke die,
Whose whole kind you might swallow and feed upon?
Weaker I am, woe is me, and worse than you,
You have not sinned, nor need be timorous.

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Music

by Frank O'Hara

If I rest for a moment near The Equestrian
pausing for a liver sausage sandwich in the Mayflower Shoppe,
that angel seems to be leading the horse into Bergdorf's
and I am naked as a table cloth, my nerves humming.
Close to the fear of war and the stars which have disappeared.
I have in my hands only 35c, it's so meaningless to eat!
and gusts of water spray over the basins of leaves
like the hammers of a glass pianoforte. If I seem to you
to have lavender lips under the leaves of the world,
I must tighten my belt.

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The Only Child

by Katharine Tynan

Lest he miss other children, lo!
His angel is his playfellow.
A riotous angel two years old,
With wings of rose and curls of gold.

There on the nursery floor together
They play when it is rainy weather,
Building brick castles with much pain,
Only to knock them down again.

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Recent Horse Poems

Spirit of the Wind

by Evelyn Judy Buehler

spirit is his name
racing through field or meadow
he loves to run free

in the times of blooms
in the saffron colored dawns
or red sunset dusk

for apples he comes
and you can ride like the wind

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The Horse

by Khayelihle Bongiswa Gamedze

One question I have now is this;
What kind of creature the horse is?
An animal who is exultant of his strength
And the brightness of his rustling mane.
Who made the horse to run so fast?
Who caused it to leap like a locust?
Who made it not to fear the harness and the saddle?
Who made it not to fear the harshness of the battle?
He is not shaken by the sharpness of the spear,
I seldom know an animal who laughs at fear.

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My Rock Away Horse-Nursery Rhyme

by Evelyn Judy Buehler

I got a rocking horse for my birthday;
And my new horse is magic and special!
When we're alone, it rocks me far away;
But my colt is very gentle and careful.

My magic horse, flies me to fun places.
One night, it rocked me off to the moon!
We've seen the world and so many faces,
And we'll both be traveling again soon.

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All Mules Matter

by Jeffrey Pipes Guice

I’m not a horse…
I am a mule…
I’m not a donkey…
You silly fool…

I’ll let you in on a secret…
My dad is a donkey and my momma’s a horse…
But I love dem both just da same…
And dey love me back, of course…

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May Day

by Sara Teasdale

The shining line of motors,
The swaying motor-bus,
The prancing dancing horses
Are passing by for us.

The sunlight on the steeple,
The toys we stop to see,
The smiling passing people
Are all for you and me.

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