Classic Poem

Fields are iron and roads are glass;
Beads of frost to the blackthorn cling;
Clicking their snaffles the hunters pass
Round in the straw-laid ring.

Bandaged and hidden in hood and sheet,
Swordsman, the chestnut, solid and slow;
Dauntless, a devil on dancing feet,
Flinging the foam like snow.

After him, going a trifle short,
Candy the cob, alert and keen;
Bangle; and old grey Bishopscourt;
And the white-foot bay Boreen.

Round and round at a walk they go,
Arching their necks to the snaffle hold,
While the stable-boys on their fingers blow
To keep away the cold.

What are you dreaming of, Candy, lad? —
Last week's gallop from Creedon Gorse,
When more than enough your Highness had,
And never a second horse?

Dauntless, old son, do your thoughts recur
To our little tiff in the Oldham yale,
When you took your gruel of whip and spur
For dodging a ditch and rail?

Bangle, my beauty, you step with pride
Befitting the pearl of our peerless Hunt!
Dreaming no doubt of that record ride
When you kept me right in front!

Nurse your dreams as you step in the straw,
Bend your necks to the single rein!
Never a frost but ends in thaw,
And you 'll gallop on grass again!