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Horses

1881 –

1968

Words are hoops
Through which to leap upon meanings,
Which are horses’ backs,
Bare, moving.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on May 5, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.

Witter Bynner was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1881. He graduated from Harvard University in 1902. After college, he worked as a newspaper reporter and, later, as the assistant editor of McClure’s magazine.

Bynner published his first poetry collection, An Ode to Harvard (Small, Maynard, & Co.), in 1907. He was also the author of New Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1960); Take Away the Darkness (Alfred A. Knopf, 1947); The Beloved Stranger (Alfred A. Knopf, 1919); Tiger (M. Kennerley, 1913); and several other poetry collections.

Themes

About this Poem

“Horses” appeared in Others for 1919: An Anthology of the New Verse (Nicholas L. Brown, 1920).

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More by this poet

Lightning

There is a solitude in seeing you,
Followed by your company when you are gone.
You are like heaven’s veils of lightning.
I cannot see till afterward
How beautiful you are.
There is a blindness in seeing you,
Followed by the sight of you when you are gone.

Witter Bynner

1920

Veils

This veil
Of lavender and dawn
Floats off
Invisible,
And this of purple noon
Unwinds in wisdom,
Twitters, undulates,
Dips, darts,
And this of night
Circles around me singing

Witter Bynner

2020

War

Fools, fools, fools,
Your blood is hot to-day.
       It cools
When you are clay.
It joins the very clod
Wherein you look at God,
Wherein at last you see
       The living God
       The loving God,
Which was your enemy.

Witter Bynner

1914

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Horses

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