Fast rode the knight by Stephen Crane

Fast rode the knight
With spurs, hot and reeking,
Ever waving an eager sword,
"To save my lady!"
Fast rode the knIght,
And leaped from saddle to war.
Men of steel flickered and gleamed
Like riot of silver lights,
And the gold of the knight's good banner
Still waved on a castle wall.
. . . . .
A horse,
Blowing, staggering, bloody thing,
Forgotten at foot of castle wall.
A horse
Dead at foot of castle wall. 

 

I think this is a pretty cool poem. First, it pulls you in with the exciting opening. I mean who doesn't love knights killing bad guys, dragons and other awesome cliches. Than after those weird dots, I'm not really sure what those are maybe periods, he draws your focus onto how the knight has injured the horse and completely forgotten about it. This was probably a more realistic take to how knights view their horses, because in movies like  the Lord of the Rings  the good guys always were shown to care for their horses. In that one scene Gandalf calls his horse from who knows where and it came running. The poem is like a metaphor for how people become blinded by their own ambition and end up hurting those who helped them. It is kinda like Macbeth, except it wasn't nearly as long. An interesting part of this poem is the capitalization of the title. In most titles the first word and other key words are capitalized, but in this title only the first word is.