Conference noted::equitation

562.0. "Poem to Animals" by SALEM::DOUGLAS () Tue Apr 19 1988 12:05

    Here's a very sad but lovely poem I have kept in my possesion for
    22 years, copied without permission. I do not know who the writer
    was. This is in humble memory for all of God's creatures that
    have fallen prey to the beast called man...
    
    
    A little colt - broncho, loaned to the farm
    To be broken in time without fury or harm,
    Yet black crows flew past you, shouting alarm,
    Calling "beware", with mournful singing....
    The butterflies there in the bush were romancing,
    The smell of the grass caught your soul in a trance,
    So why be a-fearing the spurs and the traces,
    O broncho that would not be broken of dancing?
    
    You were born with the pride of the lords great and olden
    Who danced, through the ages, in corridors golden.
    In all the wide farmplace - the person most human.
    You spoke out so plainly with squealing and capering,
    With whinnying, snorting, contorting, and prancing,
    As you dodged your pursuers, looking askance,
    With Greek-footed figures, and Parthenon paces,
    O broncho that would not be broken of dancing.
    
    The grasshoppers cheered, "keep whirling!" they said.
    The insolent sparrows called from the shed,
    "If men will not laugh, make them wish they were dead".
    But arch were your thoughts, all hatred displacing,
    Though the horse-killers came, with snake whips advancing.
    You bantered and cantered away your last chance.
    And they scourged you; with hell in their speech and their faces,
    O broncho that would not be broken of dancing.
    
    "Nobody cares for you", rattled the crows,
    As you dragged the whole reaper next day down the rows,
    You pulled like a racer and kept the mules chasing.
    You tangled the harness with bright eyes side-glancing,
    While the drunk driver bled you - pole for a lance,
    And the giant mules bit you - keeping their paces.
    O broncho that would not be broken of dancing.
    
    In the last afternoon your boyish heart broke.
    The hot wind came down like a sledge-hammer stroke.
    The blood-sucking flies to a rare feast awoke.
    And they searched out your wounds, your death warrant tracing.
    And the merciful men, their religion enhancing,
    Stopped the red reaper to give you a chance.
    Then you died on the prarie, and scrounged all disgraces,
    O broncho that would not be broken of dancing...........
    

    Tina.

    Nice going, here's another copied without permission and not sure
    who the author is.  I got this out of Dear Abby.
    
    Oh, shame on the mother of mortals,
    who did not stop to teach
    the sorrow that lies in dear, dumb eyes,
    the sorrow that has no speech.
    
    For the same force formed the camel
    that fashioned man and king,
    and the god of the whole
    gave a spark of soul
    to each furred and feathered thing.
    
    
    This also holds true for Father's too.
    I don't want to discriminate.
    
    
    Cindy

    
    	This is my love...  
    
    		by William Shakespeare
    
    (THIS TO ME IS AN ARABIAN!!!)
    
    I will not change my horse with any that 
    
    treads...
    
    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
    
    then the pipe of Hermes....
    
    He's of the color of the nutmeg and of the 
    
    heat of the ginger.....
    
    He is pure air and fire, and the dull
    
    elements of earth and water never appear in 
    
    him,
    
    But only in patient stillness
    
    while his rider mounts him...
    
    It is the prince of palfreys.  His neigh is like
    
    the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance
    
    enforces homage.
     
    Susan