My Equine Friends

"Where in this wide world can man find
Nobility without pride,
Friendship without envy,
Or beauty without vanity?

Here, where grace is laced with power,
And strength by gentleness confined.
He serves without servility, has fought without enmity.
There is nothing so powerful, nothing less violent;
Nothing as quick, nothing more patient.
The world's past has been borne on his back.
We are his heirs; he is our inheritance.

The horse."

--Ronald Duncan in Ode to the Horse