11 APRIL 1931, Page 15

Poetry

The Mares

BROAD-BACKED they gallop, the mares who have not foaled, Out of the blue-gray distance heavy with sleep ; They trample the grasses tousled and frosted deep, Their eyes flame back the diamonds of the cold.

Vital from sleep once more, alert to discover What wonder may dawn, before they school their hearts To daylong churning of mire and the tyrannous carts, They sweep to the drinking pool : it is frozen over.

Folding their necks, they stand, in a dumb surmise, The great-eyed mares whom never a mate has chosen : They seem aware of more than water frozen ; They fringe on a wistfuller Something man denies.

GEOFFREY JOHNSON.