Wingate gentled Black Whistle’s pawing With hand and wisdom and horseman’s play And listened anew to the bulldogs gnawing Their bone of iron, a mile away. There was a wood that a bonfire crowned With thick dark smoke without flame for neighbor, And the dull, monotonous, heavy sound Of a hill or a woman in too-long labor, But that was all for the Black Horse Troop And had been all since the day’s beginning, That stray boy beating his metal hoop And the tight-lipped wonder if they were winning.