Here’s a gem. This salty poem appeared on a pamphlet during the English Civil War, and it pitches the Royalist Cavaliers against the Cromwellian Roundheads through the medium of a fancy, boastful war horse and a humble mill horse or ass. Some tart words are exchanged between these two, reflecting on the ideologies of opposing sides in the war, and on class and the fate of equines in general. I copied it from a microfiche in Cambridge University Library that was not always legible, so my apologies for the omissions or errors. The spelling is also “authentic”, but reading it is rewarding, I promise!
“A Dialogue Betwixt a Horse of warre and a millhorse
wherein the content and safety of an humble and painfull life, is preferred above all the Noyse, the Tumult, and Trophies of the Warre.
Full of harmeless Mirth, and variety
London, printed Bernard Alsop, published…
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J. F Ridgley