Hard to imagine more substantial
ghosts, yet spirit-beings they are,
astride their noble marble steeds
that prance and champ the air.
The pale horsemen of Phidias are
neither here nor there, replicas that grace
the tunnelled stations underground,
as if half way to Hades they take fright
and rear at something sensed. Travellers
on platforms eye the escort at their flanks,
heroic horsemen like the ones of Thrace,
facing east and west with the arriving
and departing trains, whose passage
stirs the displaced air to pluck at manes
and riders' hair, and fret at reins,
yet leave no change, no trace.