Peleg Poague

    Horses and men are just alike.
    There was my stallion, Billy Lee,
    Black as a cat and trim as a deer,
    With an eye of fire, keen to start,
    And he could hit the fastest speed
    Of any racer around Spoon River.
    But just as you'd think he couldn't lose,
    With his lead of fifty yards or more,
    He'd rear himself and throw the rider,
    And fall back over, tangled up,
    Completely gone to pieces.
    You see he was a perfect fraud:
    He couldn't win, he couldn't work,
    He was too light to haul or plow with,
    And no one wanted colts from him.
    And when I tried to drive him - well,
    He ran away and killed me.

Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. Born in Kansas and raised in Illinois, Masters is best known for his collection of poems entitled "Spoon River Anthology" (1915), which is a series of epitaphs of residents of the fictional small town of Spoon River. His works reflect the everyday lives and frustrations of middle America. Masters also practiced law and wrote biographies for historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain.

Edgar Lee Masters

The Star

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Hamlet Micure

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

The Question

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

Neanderthal

Edgar Lee Masters, Simple Poetry

English

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Chiquita

Beautiful! Sir, you may say so. Thar isnt her match in the county;
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The Amateur Rider

Him goin' to ride for us! Him, with the pants and the eyeglass and all.
Amateur! don't he just look it, it's twenty to one on a fall.
Boss must be gone off his head to be sending out steeplechase crack
Out over fences like these with an object like that on his back.

Ride! Don't tell me he can ride. With his pants just as loose as balloons,
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Fall! why, he'd fall off a cart, let alone off a steeplechase horse.

*    *        *            *        *        *        

Yessir! the 'orse is all ready, I wish you'd have rode him before;
Nothing like knowing your 'orse, sir, and this chap's a terror to bore;
Battleaxe always could pull, and he r...

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Our New Horse

The boys had come back from the races
All silent and down on their luck;
They'd backed 'em, straight out and for places,
But never a winner they's struck.
They lost their good money on Slogan,
And fell most uncommonly flat
When Partner, the pride of the Bogan,
Was beaten by Aristocrat.

And one said, "I move that instanter
We sell out our horses and quit;
The brutes ought to win in a canter,
Such trials they do when they're fit.
The last one they ran was a snorter,
A gallop to gladden one's heart,
Two-twelve for a mile and a quarter,
And finished as straight as a dart.

"And then when I think that they're ready
To win me a nice little swag,
They are licked like the veriest neddy,
They're licked from the fall of the flag.
The mare ...

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What! you don't like him; well, maybe, we all have our fancies, of course:
Brumby to look at, you reckon? Well, no; he's a thoroughbred horse;
Sired by a son of old Panic, look at his ears and his head,
Lop-eared and Roman-nosed, ain't he?, well, that's how the Panics are bred.
Gluttonous, ugly and lazy, rough as a tipcart to ride,
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That wouldn't buy him, nor twice that; while I've a pound to the good,
This here old stager stays by me and lives like a thoroughbred should;
Hunt him away from his bedding, and sit yourself down by the wall,
Till you hear how the old fellow saved me from Gilbert, O'Meally and Hall.

* * * * * * *

Gilbert and Hall and O'Meally, back in the bushranging days,
Made themselves kings...

Andrew Barton Paterson

A Disqualified Jockey's Story

You see, the thing was this way, there was me,
That rode Panopply, the Splendor mare,
And Ikey Chambers on the Iron Dook,
And Smith, the half-caste rider on Regret,
And that long bloke from Wagga, him that rode
Veronikew, the Smowy River horse.
Well, none of them had chances, not a chance
Among the lot, unless the rest fell dead
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Could see Enchantress was a certain cop,
And all the books was layin' six to four.

They brought her out to show our lot the road,
Or so they said: but, then Gord's truth! you know,
You can believe 'em, though they took an oath
On forty Bibles that they's tell the truth.
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Andrew Barton Paterson

The Iron Horse.

    No song is mine of Arab steed -
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    Go search the level desert-land
    From Sana on to Samarcand -
    Wherever Persian prince has been
    Or Dervish, Sheik or Bedouin,
    And I defy you there to point
        Me out a steed the half so fine -
    From tip of ear to pastern-joint -
        As this old iron horse of mine.

    You do not know what beauty is -
        You do not know what gentleness
        His answer is to my caress! -
    Why, look upon this gait of his, -
    A touch upon his iron rein -
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James Whitcomb Riley