10/11/2024
In WW1 the remount depots - largely staffed by women - were responsible for the training of horses for the front. These horses were sourced from all over the US and commonwealth when supplies in the U.K. were exhausted. This is a picture of horses being loaded onto trains to go to the docks. Such a sight may have prompted this poet to write these words ….
The Remount Train.
Every head across the bar,
Every blaze and snip and star,
Every nervous twitching ear,
Every soft eye filled with fear,
Seeks a friend and seems to say :
Whither now, and where away?'
Seeks a friend and seems to ask :
'Where the goal and what the task?'
Wave the green flag! Let them go! —
Only horses? Yes, I know;
But my heart goes down the line
With them, and their grief is mine! —
There goes honour, there goes faith,
Down the way of duel and death,
Hidden in the cloud that clings
To the battle-wrath of kings!
There goes timid childlike trust
To the burden and the dust!
Highborn courage, princely grace
To the peril it must face!
There go stoutness, strength, and speed
To be spent where none shall heed,
And great hearts to face their fate
In the clash of human hate!
Wave the flag, and let them go! —
Hats off to that wistful row
Of lean heads of brown and bay,
Black and chestnut, roan and grey!
Here 's good luck in lands afar —
Snow-white streak, and blaze, and star!
May you find in those far lands
Kindly hearts and horsemen's hands!
W.H. Ogilvie.
