The Ponies
Wilfred Gibson
During the strike, the ponies were brought up
From their snug stables, some three hundred feet
Below the surface - up the pit's main shaft
Shot one by one into the light of day;
And as each stepped, bewildered, from the cage,
He stood among his fellows, shivering,
In the unaccustomed freshness of free air,
His dim eyes dazzled by the April light
And then one suddenly left the huddled group,
Lifted his muzzle, sniffed the freshness in.
Pawed the soft turf and, whinneying started trotting
Across the field; and one by one his fellows
With pricking ears each slowly followed him,
Timidly trotting: when the leader's trot
Broke into a canter, then into a gallop;
And now the whole herd galloped at his heels
Around the dewy meadow, hard hooves, used
To stumbling over treacherous stony tramways
And plunging hock-deep through black steamy puddles
Of the dusty narrow galleries, delighting,
In the soft spring of the resilient turf.
With a soft thunder of hooves,the sunshine flashing,
On their sleek coats, through the bright April weather.
They raced all day; and even when the night
Kindled clear stars above them in the sky
Strangely unsullied by the stack which now
No longer belched out blackness, still they raced,
Unwearied, as through their short sturdy limbs
The rebel blood like wildfire ran, their lungs
Filled with the breath of freedom. On they sped
Through the sweet dewy darkness; and all night
The watchman at the pithead heard the thudding
Of those careering and exultant hooves
Still circling in a crazy chase; and dawn
Found them still streaming raggedly around,
Tailing into a lagging cantering,
And so to a stumbling trot; when gradually,
Dropping out one by one, they started cropping
The dew-dank tender grass, which no foul reek
From the long idle pit now smirched, and drinking
With quivering nostrils the rich living breath
Of sappy growing things, the cool rank green
Greatful to eyes familiar from their colthood
Only with darkness and the dusty glimmer
Of lamplit galleries......
