Today’s horse racing poetry was written by W. B. Yeats and published in Responsibilities and Other Poems in 1916.
At Galway Races
Here where the course is,
Delight makes all of the one mind,
The riders upon the galloping horses,
The crowd that closes in behind:
We, too, had good attendance once,
Hearers and hearteners of the work;
Aye, horsemen for companions,
Before the merchant and the clerk
Breathed on the world with timid breath.
Sing on: somewhere at some new moon,
We’ll learn that sleeping is not death,
Hearing the whole earth change its tune,
Its flesh being wild, and it again
Crying aloud as the racecourse is,
And we find hearteners among men
That ride upon horses.
Read More Yeats
If you liked this poem, you can read all of Responsibilities and Other Poems here. If you want to try a different poet, why not take a look at some William Wordsworth.