The Rider ("Quest:" Revision)

I came back with fresh eyes and changed a few things, including the title. Still not absolutely sure about it.

A knight is a pair of crystal eyes

In a face chiseled under the forever shadow of the helm.

Body hidden beneath a skin of scarred metal 

The defender, the horsemen 

His name upon his shield 

His truth spoken in blades,

A knight is the champion of the armored heart.

A sword is a river’s spirit

Cut from the earth, 

Pale and still shimmering.

Hardened by hammer and sharpened by stone,

Call her the dancer

Call her the laughing queen, embattled,

Call her the witness,

In darkness, rippling

A sword is the silent dream of steel.

A horse is the sun overflowing the grasslands, 

The dark-eyed daughter of the plains.

Hoof-steps repeating the deep heartbeat of the earth, 

Stealing, in twos and threes, the grace of shadows,

The running joy of the wind. 

Uncertain and wild as winter flowers,

A horse is the thunder where the sky begins.

A dragon is a storm built and raging and fractured--

Captured, distilled into four elements--

Bound to bone, sheathed in scale and horn and leathery wing,

All the lightning knotted up inside.

Fanged and hissing, some call them monstrous things,

But living as glimpses of sky,

Dark or light by chance of moment,

A dragon is neither evil, good, nor tame.

Reviews

[ShaunMosley]

I like how visual and essential this poem is.

[R. Goebel]

Thank you :)
Is there anything you would change about it, or that you think should be reworked?