Cavalry Horses
By the brand on my withers, the finest of tunesIs played by the Lancers, Hussars, and Dragoons,And it's sweeter than 'Stables' or 'Water' to me.The Cavalry Canter of 'Bonnie Dundee'!
Then feed us and break us and handle and groom,And give us good riders and plenty of room,And launch us in column of squadron and seeThe Way of the War-horse to 'Bonnie Dundee'!
Words in this poem
- withers n.
- The ridge between the shoulder bones of a horse, at the base of the neck. See Illust. of Horse. [Properly, the parts which resist the pull or strain in drawing a load; fr. OE. wither resistance, AS. withre, fr. wither against; akin to G. widerrist withers. ]
- canter n.
- A moderate and easy gallop adapted to pleasure riding. [An abbreviation of Caner bury. See Canterbury gallop, under Canterbury.]
- squadron n.
- Primarily, a square; hence, a square body of troops; a body of troops drawn up in a square. [F. escadron, formerly also esquadron, or It. squadrone. See Squad.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cavalry Horses is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, Cavalry Horses, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/cavalry-horses.html, id L20361.
Form and metre
Cavalry Horses is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%).
See other poems in anapaestic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB tunesA · dragoonsA · meB · dundeeB
- 2 AABB groomA · roomA · seeB · dundeeB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| By the brand on my withers, the finest of tunes | 12 | ·····/˘·/˘·· |
| Is played by the Lancers, Hussars, and Dragoons, | 11 | ····/˘/˘··· |
| And it's sweeter than 'Stables' or 'Water' to me. | 12 | ··/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| The Cavalry Canter of 'Bonnie Dundee'! | 11 | ·/˘˘/˘·/˘˘/ |
| Then feed us and break us and handle and groom, | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| And give us good riders and plenty of room, | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| And launch us in column of squadron and see | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| The Way of the War-horse to 'Bonnie Dundee'! | 11 | ·······/˘˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.