THE PLOUGH HORSE On a wide-open, windless Autumn morning When shadows are all on the other side of the hedge or the tree, A slim young rook slides away like a knife blade >From the branch-stump, notched and broken as an old tooth, Where his eager bright brothers noisily Push each other down -- I'm King of the Castle! With wings rising like tattered heraldry; With torn wings flapping they regain their balance. >From behind a sturdy tree in the quiet, sunny distance, Solemnly comes the stolid brown plough-horse, Tony: No harness about him now, no harrow behind him, While the furrows are idle and himself at leisure, Shoulder-bare he plods forward in the resting field, His gait not changing, his muscles anticipating The solid jolting weight again of the ghostly gear That he wears as surely buckled on him now As a sleepwalking monk would carry his girdle and habit. -- Rhoda Coghill (born 1903)