Song Of Seventy Horses

Once again the Steamer at Calais, the tackles     Easing the car-trays on to the quay. Release her!     Sign-refill, and let me away with my horses     (Seventy Thundering Horses!)     Slow through the traffic, my horses! It is enough, it is France     Whether the throat-closing brick fields by Lille, or her paves     Endlessly ending in rain between beet and tobacco;     Or that wind we shave by, the brutal North-Easter,     Rasping the newly dunged Somme.     (Into your collars, my horses!) It is enough, it is France!     Whether the dappled Argonne, the cloud-shadows packing     Either horizon with ghosts; or exquisite, carven     Villages hewn from the cliff, the torrents behind them     Feeding their never-quenched lights.     (Look to your footing, my horses!) It is enough, it is France!     Whether that gale where Biscay jammed in the corner     Herds and heads her seas at the Landes, but defeated     Bellowing smokes along Spain, till the uttermost headlands     Make themselves dance in the mist.     (Breathe, breathe deeply, my horses!) It is enough, it is France!     Whether the broken, honey-hued, honey-combed limestone     Cream under white-hot sun; the rosemary bee-bloom     Sleepily noisy at noon and, somewhere to Southward,     Sleepily noisy, the Sea.     (Tes, it is warm here, my horses!) It is enough, it is France     Whether the Massif in Spring, the multiplied lacets     Hampered by slips or drifts; the gentians, under     Turbaned snow, pushing up the heaven of Summer     Though the stark moors lie black.     (Neigh through the icicled tunnels;) It is enough, it is France!