Great Regulars: [Michael] Longley's experience of violence

in war is patent in this poem in the exquisite sensory imagery of Balius and Xanthus. Their grief at Patroclus' bloody death is grafted on to their bodies: "Hot tears spilling from their eyelids onto the ground"; their "shiny manes bedraggled". The clinging repetition of "yoke" in the final line conveys the horses'--and our own--desire to dwell in the first still moments of loss.

The Horses

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: The Horses

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