IRISH-AMERICAN-L Archives

From: "Jean Rice" <>
Subject: [Irish-American] "Beauty Show: Clifden, Co. Galway" -- (Connemara ponies) -- Born Co. Laois - Cecil DAY-LEWIS/Late Poet Laureate England/Visiting Professor Harvard
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 17:19:54 -0700

BEAUTY SHOW: CLIFDEN, CO. GALWAY

They've come to town from each dot on the compass, they're
Wild as tinkers and groomed to an eyelash,
And light of foot as a champion featherweight
Prance on the top of the morning.

They walk the ring, so glossy and delicate
Each you'd think was a porcelain masterpiece
Come to life at the touch of a raindrop,
Tossing its mane and its halter.

The shy, the bold, the demure and the whinnier,
Grey, black, piebald, roans, palominos
Parade their charms for the tweedy, the quite un-
Susceptible hearts of the judges.

Now and again at the flick of an instinct,
As if they'd take off like a fieldful of rooks, they will
Fidget and fret for the pasture they know, and
The devil take all this competing.

The light is going, the porter is flowing,
The field a ruin of paper and straw.
Step neatly home now, unprized or rosetted,
You proud Connemara ponies.

-- C. Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate, England (Anglo-Irish origins)

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• [Irish-American] "Beauty Show: Clifden, Co. Galway" -- (Connemara ponies) -- Born Co. Laois - Cecil DAY-LEWIS/Late Poet Laureate England/Visiting Professor Harvard by "Jean Rice" <>