This poem is taken from PN Review 144, Volume 28 Number 4, March - April 2002.

Skyhorse

Jon Stallworthy


And I looked, and behold a pale horse:
and his name that sat on him was Death.
                                                  Revelation 6:8

It is a peculiarity of the Germans to seek omens and warnings from horses. They are kept at public expense in the same groves and woods, white and untouched by any human labour; after they have been harnessed to the sacred chariot, the priest and the king or chieftain of the tribe accompany them and take note of their neighs and snortings. No portent is more trusted, not only by the common people, but by the aristocracy and the priests; for they consider themselves to be the gods' servants, but the horses actually their confidants.
Tacitus: Germania, 10, 3-5



Before the gods that made the gods
    Had seen their sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
    Was cut out of the grass.

                                     G.K. Chesterton: The Ballad of the White Horse


The owld White Horse wants zettin to rights...
                                    Anon: 'The Ballad of the Scouring of the White Horse'


          ...that high horse riderless,
Though mounted in that saddle Homer rode...

                                    W.B. Yeats: 'Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931'


I
The first priest of the
...
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