We Are Riding

We are riding mettled horses, high mettled horses, We are riding mettled horses through the wind and the rain, Through woodlands over meadows past the glinting yellow gorses We are riding on forever, we are riding not alone. The woods are dripping water; the cold wind wraps our bodies, We

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Taking Ponies Home by Moonlight

When the liquid moonlight dripped Like water from their manes, And the blinding white on white On silver blazed across the lanes. Where the shadows slipped-and ran The gauntlet of the dust And the lace-wing patterns lit Their listening ears with frost. Very short –the miles we went Through beechwoods.

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Back in the Box

Put them back in the box My bones. Let them rattle. They’re only chessmen, really Playing this rough game. How old is the colt? That young beauty Bay thoroughbred – uncouth Loose limbed beauty-boy Tossed me about like a toy. How is the colt? In truth Not hurt, just scared.

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The Handful

Your little feet are perfect, Your little shoes are clean, How can it be possible Your little eyes are mean? Your coat is dripping chestnut Your mane is rippling sand How can it be possible You seem so out-of-hand? You’re bounding like a Percheron, You’re pulling like a train, How

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Gentle Women

Gentle Women We’re gentle women, light, lively and small, But when we’re in the saddle we’re seven feet tall! We follow the footsteps of our gentle mothers, With a hoofpick in one hand and a brush in the other, With wheelbarrows, buckets, and stall-muckin’ shoes, And we’re up in the

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The Pack Horse and The Carrier by John Gay

To a young nobleman. Begin, my lord, in early youth To suffer, nay, encourage truth; And blame me not for disrespect, If I the flatter’s stile reject; With that, by menial tongues supply’d, You’re daily cocker’d up in pride. The tree’s distinguished by the fruit, Be virtue then your first

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Daily Horse Prayer

Give us this day our daily horse ride Forgive us our trespasses, we’ve nowhere to hide Please give our horses, their daily horse bread And forgive us for the improper things that we said. Forgive us dear lord for deserting the home For us gentle riders we just want to

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Stockbridge by Caroline Baldock

Sleepy market town – wake up – rouse yourself From slumber. Swell your river as it rushes through With memories. Lidless the river’s eyes, See that all the racing’s gone. Once horses flowed through your veins Not just rivers; great horses; The Tetrarch, bold in his mottled coat, The fastest

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The Unicorn by Caroline Baldock

The dawn across a desert broke with flaming eye of rising sun, a line of dust a swirl of cloud with stretching neck and flying mane she touched the earth to us she came. Her head was fine her eyes were deep her hooves cut crescents in my sleep, I

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