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Nellie Rakerfield
Came from an estate in Scotland,
Two years old, and won a championship.
It was not her fault that her foals
Were few, and mostly died or were runted.
She worked every day when she raised them,
Never was tired of dragging her
Nineteen hundred pounds
About the farm and the roads, with
Great loads behind it.
She never kicked, bit, nor crowded
In the stall,
Was always ready at a chirp
And seemed to have forgotten delicate care.
But the day they hitched her
To the corpse of her six-months-old-colt,
She tried to run away, half way to the bush.
She never seemed quite so willing, afterward.
But the colt was too heavy.
Returning again to the Oxford Book of Canadian Verse. I don't know what it is about this poem that gets me, exactly. The understatement of 'she never seemed quite so willing, afterward'? The way the poem opens, framing Nellie as a champion racer, but is actually about a workhorse? There's something about it - not just the use of the term 'bush' - that seems familiar to me, particularly British-colonial. If I didn't know this was Canadian I'd as easily place it in Australia or New Zealand.
Came from an estate in Scotland,
Two years old, and won a championship.
It was not her fault that her foals
Were few, and mostly died or were runted.
She worked every day when she raised them,
Never was tired of dragging her
Nineteen hundred pounds
About the farm and the roads, with
Great loads behind it.
She never kicked, bit, nor crowded
In the stall,
Was always ready at a chirp
And seemed to have forgotten delicate care.
But the day they hitched her
To the corpse of her six-months-old-colt,
She tried to run away, half way to the bush.
She never seemed quite so willing, afterward.
But the colt was too heavy.
Returning again to the Oxford Book of Canadian Verse. I don't know what it is about this poem that gets me, exactly. The understatement of 'she never seemed quite so willing, afterward'? The way the poem opens, framing Nellie as a champion racer, but is actually about a workhorse? There's something about it - not just the use of the term 'bush' - that seems familiar to me, particularly British-colonial. If I didn't know this was Canadian I'd as easily place it in Australia or New Zealand.