Dear Alicia
Here is the poem you were seeking. Below I have posted another poem by Muir which uses the image of the horse in yet another way.
It is perhaps interesting that Eliot omitted both from his posthumous Selected Poems.
Incidentally, I think Muir might have preferred to have been referred to as an Orcadian rather than as a Scottish poet.
Kind regards
Clive
Horses
Those lumbering horses in the steady plough,
On the bare field - I wonder why, just now,
They seemed terrible, so wild and strange,
Like magic power on the stony grange.
Perhaps some childish hour has come again,
When I watched fearful, through the blackening rain,
Their hooves like pistons in an ancient mill
Move up and down, yet seem as standing still.
Their conquering hooves which trod the stubble down
Were ritual that turned the field to brown,
And their great hulks were seraphim of gold,
Or mute ecstatic monsters on the mould.
And oh the rapture, when, one furrow done,
They marched broad-breasted to the sinking sun!
The light flowed off their bossy sides in flakes;
The furrows rolled behind like struggling snakes.
But when at dusk with streaming nostrils home
They came, they seemed gigantic in the gloam,
And warm and glowing with mysterious fire
That lit their smouldering bodies in the mire.
Their eyes as brilliant and as wide as night
Gleamed with a cruel apocalyptic light.
Their manes the leaping ire of the wind
Lifted with rage invisible and blind.
Ah, now it fades! it fades! and must I pine
Again for that dread country crystalline,
Where the blank field and the still-standing tree
Were bright and fearful presences to me.
Edwin Muir
The Toy Horse
See him, the gentle Bible beast,
With lacquered hoofs and curling mane,
His wondering journey from the East
Half done, between the rock and plain,
His little kingdom at his feet
Through which the silver rivulets flow,
For while his hoofs in silence beat
Beside him Eden and Canaan go.
The great leaves turn and then are still.
Page after page through the deepening day
He steps, and from each morning hill
Beholds his stationary way.
His lifted foot commands the West,
And, lingering, halts the turning sun;
Endless departure, endless rest,
End and beginning here are one.
Dumb wooden idol, you have led
Millions on your calm pilgrimage
Between the living and the dead,
And shine yet in your golden age.
Edwin Muir
[This message has been edited by Clive Watkins (edited May 20, 2004).]
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