At Grass

The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in,
Till wind distresses tail and mane;
Then one crops grass, and moves about—
The other seeming to look on—
And stands anonymous again.

Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps,
Two dozen distances sufficed
To fable them; faint afternoons
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,
Whereby their names were artificed
To inlay faded, classic Junes—

Silks at the start: against the sky
Numbers and parasols: outside,
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,
And littered grass: then the long cry
Hanging unhushed till it subside
To stop-press columns on the street.

Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads.  Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The Starting-gates.  The crowds and cries—
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
OR curious stop-watch prophesies:
Only the groom, and the groom's boy,
With bridles in the evening come.

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