Poetry

[lisa2]

I need help from out resident literates. Every yr\ear I make a calendar for my barn where i board. I have this extra page that I put something on like poems about friends, or horses, or something along those lines. Well my b/o former show horse passed away suddenly early this summer. She was the kind of horse that even though she had been sold, my b/o had always regretted it. So I was thinking this year on this extra page I would put her congress picture, and something about friends, horses something, but I am having a problem finding something. I like the one about I know great horses live again, but I used that one last year. So if anyone has a favorite poem, maybe something thats a little touching, or whatever it would be appreciated.

[adcooper]

You know horses are smarter than people. You never heard of a horse going broke betting on people. ~Will Rogers

And Allah took a handful of southerly wind, blew His breath over it, and created the horse.... Thou shall fly without wings, and conquer without any sword. Oh, horse. ~Bedouin Legend

Even an E-type Jaguar looks merely flash beside a really smart pony and trap. ~Marion C. Garretty

If the world was truly a rational place, men would ride sidesaddle. ~Rita Mae Brown

A thousand horse and none to ride! -
With flowing tail, and flying mane,
Wide nostrils never stretched by pain,
Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein,
And feet that iron never shod,
And flanks unscarred by spur or rod,
A thousand horse, the wild, the free,
Like waves that follow o'er the sea,
Came thickly thundering on,...
~Lord Byron, XVII, Mazeppa, 1818

[filly]

I made calenders last year as Xmas presents with pics of their horses as well as others and posted quotes on them. Although many of these are dressage quotes they may be useful. I am just posting my whole repertoire and you can decide which one's you want to use. That's really nice you are doing that. I'm sure she will really appreciate and cherish it.
• Let us look beyond the ears of our own horses so that we may see the good in one another's. -Old equine expression
• Horses have hoofs to carry them over frost and snow; hair, to protect them from wind and cold. They eat grass and drink water, and fling up their heels.... Such is the real nature of horses. -Chuang Tzu
• ...through his mane and tail the high wind sings, fanning the hairs, who wave like feather'd wings. -Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
• A horse is a thing of such beauty... none will tire of looking at him as long as he displays himself in his splendor. -Xenophon
• Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth. -Shakespeare, Henry V
• So did this horse excel a common one In shape, in courage, color, pace and bone. ...What a horse should have he did not lack, Save a proud rider on so proud a back. -Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
• My horse has a hoof like a striped agate Hi fetlock is like a fine eagle plume Hi legs are like lightning My horse has a tail like a thin black cloud the Holy Wind blows through his mane... -Navajo song
• There is no secret so close as that between a rider and his horse. -Old equine expression
• A prince is never surrounded by as much majesty on his throne as he is on a beautiful horse. -William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle
• The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears. -Arabian proverb


• hether you regard the horse with awe or love, it is impossible to escape the sheer power of his presence.... -Mary Wanless
• Horses carry the history of mankind on their broad backs. -Lucinda Prior Palmer
• And the hoofs of the horses as they run shake the crumbling field.... Publius Virgilius Maro, Roman poet (70-19 B.C.)
• I am the Turquoise Woman's Son, On top of Belted Mountain beautiful horses--slim like a weasel! My horse with a hoof like a striped agate, with his fetlock like a fine eagle plume: my horse whose legs are like quick lightning whose body is an eagle-plumed arrow: my horse whose tail is like a trailing black cloud. The Little Holy Wind blows through his hair. My horse with a mane made of short rainbows. My horse with ears made of round corn. My horse with eyes made of big starts. My horse with a head made of mixed waters. My horse with teeth made of white shell. The long rainbow is in his mouth for a bridle and with it I guide him. -"The War God's Horse Song", Anonymous Navajo poet
• Under his spurning feet, the road Like an arrowly alpine river flowed And the landscape sped away behind Like an ocean flying before the wind.... -Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872), American poet
• Noblest of the train that wait on man, the flight-performing horse. -William Cowper (1731-1800), English poet
• When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: He trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. - William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright and poet
• She was iron-sinew'd and satin-skinn'd. Ribb'd like a drum and limb'd like a deer, Fierce as the fire and fleet as the wind-- There was nothing she couldn't climb or clear. -Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-1870), Australian poet
• My Beautiful! My beautiful! that standest meekly by With thy proudly-arch'd and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye, Fret not to roam the desert now, with all thy winged speed; I may not mount on thee again--thou'rt sold, my Arab steed! - Caroline Norton (1808-1877), Irish writer


• The horse has so docile a nature, That he would always rather do Right than wrong, if he can only Be taught to distinguish one from the other. - George Melville (1821-1878), Scottish writer
• Dawn bounced up in a bright red hat, waved at the world and skipped away. Up staggered the foal, its hooves were jelly-knots of foam.
• Then day sniffed with its blue nose through the open stable window, and found them-- the foal nuzzling its mother, velvet fumbling for her milk. -Ferenc Juhasz, B. 1928, Hungarian poet
• A fine little smooth horse colt, Should move a man as much as doth a son. -Thomas Kyd (1558-1594), English dramatist
• [The mare] set off for home with the speed of a swallow, and going as smoothly and silently. I never had dreamed of such a motion, fluent and graceful, and ambient, soft as the breeze flitting over the flowers, but swift as the summer lightning. -Richard Doddridge Blackmore (1825-1900), English writer
• The mare lies down in the grass where the next of the skylark is hidden. Her eyes drink the delicate horizon moving behind the song. Deep sink the skies, a well of voices. Her sleep is the vessel of Summer. -Vernon Watkens (1906-1967), Welsh poet
• Do not spur a free horse. -Latin proverb
• It isn't important who is ahead at one time or another, in either an election or a horse race. It's the horse that comes in first at the finish that counts H. S. Truman, speech Oct. 17, 1948


• Politicians are like the bones of a horse's foreshoulder-not a straight one in it. Wendell Philips, speech, July 1864
• Nothing does as much for the insides of a man than the outsides of a horse. Ronald Reagan, Remark on Aug 13, 1987, North Platte, Nebr.
• A horse is dangerous at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle. Ian Fleming[1908-1960] quoted in Sunday Times, London Oct. 9, 1966
• The horse, the horse! The symbol of surging potency and power of movement, of action, in man. D.H. Lawrence [1885-1930] British author, Apocalypse, ch. 10, 1931
• They say princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his groom. Ben Jonson [1573-1637]
• Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what do you find? That the stables are the real center of the household. Gerorge Bernard Shaw 1856-1950, Anglo-Irish Play-write, critic. Lady Utterword, in Hartbreak House, act 3
• My beautiful, my beautiful! That standest meekly by, With thy proudly-arched and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye! Caroline Sheridan Norton 1808-1877, English writer, poet. The Arab's Farewell to His Steed
• It takes a good deal of physical courage to ride a horse. This, however, I have. I get it at about forty cents a flask, and take it as required. Stephen Leacock (1869-1944), Canadian humorist, economist. Literary Lapses, "Reflections on Riding" 1910
• Animals do not admire each other. A horse does not admire its companion. Blaise Pascal 1623-1662, French scientist, philosopher, Pense'es.


• Four things greater than all things are, - Women and Horses and Power and War. Rudyard Kipling, "The Ballad of the King's Jest," stanza 5, The Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling: Departmental Ditties and Barrack-Room Ballads, vol. 25, p. 234, (1941)
• For want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want of a Shoe the Horse was lost; and for want of a Horse the Rider was was lost; being overtaken and slain by the Enemy, all for want of Care about the Horse-shoe Nail. Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac, June 1758, The Complete Poor Richards Almanacs, facsimile ed., vol.. 2. 375, 377 [1970]
• Does it really matter what these affectionate people do -so long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses! Mrs. Patrick Campbell, rebuke to a young actress reporting that an old actress in the company was too fond of the young and the handsome leading-man.
• I don't mind where people make love so long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses! The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations 3d ed., p. 128 [1970]
• My dear, I don't care what they do so long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses! Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 15th ed., p. 706, no. 16 [1982]
• "I saw a child who couldn't walk, sit on a horse, laugh and talk... I saw a child who could only crawl, mount a horse and sit up tall. I saw a child born into strife, take up and hold the reins of life. And that same child was heard to say, Thank God for showing me the way." -- John Anthony Davis
• A lot of what's about horses is nuts and bolts...If the rider's nuts, the horse bolts. - -The Horse Whisperer.
• A horse is the projection of people's dreams about themselves - strong, powerful, beautiful - and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence -- Pam Brown
• In riding a horse, we borrow freedom. -- Pam Brown
• I ride, therefore I am. -- Unknown
• A horse loves freedom, and the weariest work horse will roll on the ground or break loose into a lumbering gallop when he is turned loose in the open. -- Gerald Rafferty
• That horse wasn't built to tread the earth, he took natural to the air, and every time he went aloft, he tried to leave me there. -- Unknown


• If you have it, you have it for life. It is a disease for which there is no cure. You will go on riding even after they have to haul you onto a comfortable wise old cob, with feet like inverted buckets and a back like a fireside chair. -- Monica Dickens
• The Horse: Here is nobility without conceit, friendship without envy, beauty without vanity, a willing servant, yet no slave. -- Unknown
• You can tell a gelding, ask a mare; but you must discuss it with a stallion. -- Unknown
• Computers are like horses, press the right button and they'll take you anywhere. -- Unknown
• A canter is a cure for every evil. -- Benjamin Disraeli
• A daughter who won't lift a finger in the house is the same child who cycles madly off in the pouring rain to spend all morning mucking out stables. -- Samantha Armstrong
• There are only two emotions that belong on the saddle; One is a sense of humor, and the other is patience. -- John Lyons
• The only approbation a rider should covet is that of his horse. -- E. Beudant
• Most persons do not ride; they are conveyed. -- M.F. McTaggart
• Men on horseback have created most of the world's history. -- Unknown

[johnnysauntie]

In Praise Of The Horse

Ronald Duncan



Where in this wide world can man find nobility without pride,
friendship without envy, or beauty without vanity?
Here where grace is laced with muscle and strength by gentleness confined.

He serves without servility; he has fought without enmity.
There is nothing so powerful, nothing less violent;
there is nothing so quick, nothing more patient.

All of our past has been borne on his back.
All our history is in his industry.
We are his heirs;
He is our inheritance

Ladies and Gentlemen:
The Horse.

[Bara]

Oooh - it's hard to pick a favourite - but I think I have :

Dawn bounced up in a bright red hat, waved at the world and skipped away. Up staggered the foal, its hooves were jelly-knots of foam

Thank you all, so much!
;D

[ZenRider]

The only problem with the Ronald Reagan quote is that he borrowed that from Sir Winston Churchill.

www.gfdressage.com/quotes.htm

For some reason I can sometimes relate to this quote:

"The horse, the noblest, bravest, proudest, most courageous, and certainly
the most perverse and infuriating animal that humans ever domesticated."
--The Lady (1987), Anne McCaffrey (1926 -)