Poems About Horse: The poets portray the simple components of nature in a way that gives a new perspective to the reader. Horses have their significance in human lives in many ways for ages, and the poets, through their pen, express their love for the creatures. Here in this article, we will get to know about ten such poems about horse riding which are loved by many readers around the world.
Students can also check the English Summary to revise with them during exam preparation.
Horse and Men in Rain by Carl Sandburg
‘Horse and Men in Rain’ by Carl Sandburg was written in 1918. The poem focuses on storytelling as the main plot of the poem. The poem tells the story of the underprivileged people of the society, such as the ‘mail carriers’ and ‘milk wagon drivers’ through images that illustrate their daily lives.
In this poem, the poet compares the misery of the lives of these people with the speaker and the listener. This three-stanza poem is not bounded by a rhyme scheme, yet it expresses the poet’s vision in beautiful images which the reader can easily imagine or visualize.
Boot and Saddle by Robert Browning
‘Boot and Saddle’ by Robert Browning is the third part of the ‘Cavalier Tunes’. In this poem, the speaker is a supporter of Charles of England, and Oliver Cromwell, Charles’s enemy, has devised a plan to attack the castle.
The speaker rides on his horse to rescue the Brancepeth Castle but, in the end, addresses that surrendering to the enemy is not an option and urges to fight.
The poem is a perfectly rhymed one and follows the AAAA rhyme scheme, and hence it has been turned into a song as the musical texture already exists in the poem.
The White Horse by D.H. Lawrence
D.H. Lawrence’s ‘The White Horse’ is a short yet influential poem with a single stanza consisting of three lines. The poem’s plot is based on a white horse and a youth and how both of them exist in their own worlds, respectively.
This poem does not follow a rhyming pattern and consists of minute details, making the reader read between the lines. The final line of the poem leaves the reader to interpret what the phrases’ so silent’ and ‘in another world’ depict.
The Undertaker’s Horse by Rudyard Kipling
‘The Undertaker’s Horse’ was written in 1885 by Rudyard Kipling in the early stages of his career, but it reflects that Rudyard Kipling was thinking about his demise when he was young.
The poem tells the story of a horse of an undertaker who carries corpses to their resting place for burial. The poet wonders about his death and whether, in his last ride to his grave, the same horse will accompany him or he will live longer than the horse.
This is an eight-stanza poem consisting of six lines in each stanza and uses lexical repetitions such as him, your, I; to highlight a significant image.
The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes
‘The Highwayman’ is a romantic narrative poem written by Alfred Noyes and was first published in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1906.
The poem is based on the life of an unknown highwayman who falls in love with Bess, an innkeeper’s daughter. Due to circumstances, the highwayman and Bess both fail to give their love a destination when alive, but in the end, they meet again as ghosts on a winter night.
The poem uses literary devices to depict the deep love that the central characters of the poem nurture. Some of the tools used are symbolism, repetition, metaphors, assonance and others.
The Old Horse in the City by Vachel Lindsay
‘The Old Horse in the City’, written by Vachel Lindsay, is a short three-stanza poem about an old horse who is tortured and ill-treated by his masters and how he wishes to escape.
The narrator of the poem is the aged horse, and he dreams of being free someday. The horse is hopeful and believes that he can ‘break the halter-rope’ and ‘smash the stable-door’ to escape from the misery he is living in.
The poet makes sufficient uses of metaphors along with other poetic tools, which makes the reader think of the significance of the situation, and the reader gets hooked on the poem.
At Grass by Philip Larkin
‘At Grass’ was written by Philip Larkin and published in the year 1955. The poem explores contrasting themes such as life and death, past and present.
This poem is divided into five stanzas, where each stanza consists of six lines. This poem is classified as a ‘lyric poem’ with a formal verse and follows an ABCABC rhyme scheme.
The poem revolves around the racehorses that once were the centre of attraction and received infinite appreciations and applauses. After they retired, they spend the rest of their lives grazing in the field as they are now forgotten as strength, beauty, wealth – nothing is eternal.
The Horse Poisoner by Thomas Lux
Thomas Lux’s ‘The Horse Poisoner’ is a poem about untimely and strange serial deaths of horses in the farms of a specific areaand the investigation followed by the incidents.
This poem’s structure consists of a single stanza comprising of twenty-seven lines without following a particular rhyming scheme. This narrative poem explains the incidents happening around the speaker from his perspective and how he thinks something mysterious is happening to the horses.
One of the most important poetic devices used in this poem is imagery, as while reading the poem, the reader can not only visualize the situation but also sense the mystery around that place.
Why Some Girls Love Horses by Paisley Rekdal
‘Why Some Girls Love Horses’ was written by Paisley Rekdal. This poem is a ‘coming of age’ story, where the speaker of the poem is a woman in her adulthood, and the poem talks about her journey from a young girl to a grown-up woman.
The poet beautifully uses the poetic device of symbolism, where the speaker’s horse named Dandy is presented as a symbol in the poem. The symbol tells about the importance of freedom in one’s life and how it helps to grow the person from within.
On the Horse and His Rider by John Bunyan
‘On the Horse and His Rider’ by John Bunyan is a poem about a horse and his rider and their relationship. The poem consists of two stanzas, and the poet uses a unique way of dividing the same, which is by using ‘Comparison.’ as a divider between them.
The poem emphasizes the relationship between the animal and the human, and the speaker says that the rider should know his ride and learn about the signals to ride them. Similarly, the horse should know about his companion, which is the rider and hence a healthy relationship gets developed between the horse and his ‘guider’.