Heavy Horses

INTRO    FRET   Iron-clad feather-feet pounding the dust   An October’s day towards evening   Sweat embossed veins standing proud to the plough   Salt on a deep chest seasoning   Last of the line at an honest day’s toil   Turning the deep sod  under   Flint at the fetlock chasing the bone   Flies at the nostrils plunder.   The Suffolk the Clydesdale the Percheron vie     with the Shire on his feathers floating   Hauling soft timber into the dusk     to bed on a warm straw coating.   Heavy Horses move the land under me     Behind the plough gliding --- slipping and sliding free   Now you’re down to the few   And there’s no work to do   The tractor’s on its way. Let me find you a filly for your proud stallion seed     to keep the old line going.   And we’ll stand you abreast at the back of the wood     behind the young trees growing   To hide you from eyes that mock at your girth     and your eighteen hands at the shoulder   And one day when the oil barons have all dripped dry     and the nights are seen to draw colder   They’ll beg for your strength your gentle power     your noble grace and your bearing   And you’ll strain once again to the sound of the gulls     in the wake of the deep plough sharing.   Standing like tanks on the brow of the hill   Up into the cold wind facing   In stiff battle harness chained to the world   Against the low sun racing   Bring me a wheel of oaken wood   A rein of polished leather   A Heavy Horse and a tumbling sky   Brewing heavy weather.   Bring a song for the evening   Clean brass to flash the dawn     across these acres glistening     like dew on a carpet lawn   In these dark towns folk lie sleeping     as the heavy horses thunder by     to wake the dying city     with the living horseman’s cry   At once the old hands quicken ---     bring pick and wisp and curry comb ---     thrill to the sound of all     the heavy horses coming home.