The Minor Poems of Joseph Beaumont :: :: University of Virginia Library

Not from the stern
Portch did I lern
This Lesson, but from civil Reasons Temple:
Nor can thy fine example
Outbrave my sober grounds, or prove that I
A Heretik am in Gentility.

2

I needs must tell
Thee, Gallant, still
Thy hounds & hawks I never yet could see
Catch such delight to me,
As oft is caught by these two fingers when
After a flea in hott persute they runn.

3

Dost thou not know
It is not Thou
That hawk'st & huntest, but thy hound & hawk?
And dost not blush to talk
Of generous Sport, when thou their Lord, at least
Art the Attendant on thy Bird and Beast!

416

4

Nay more than so,
Their Vassal too
Thou art, & whether thorough fair or foule
Thy most inslaved Soule
Is glad to thrust thee, yf they lead the way:
Are these the paths to manly noble Joy?

5

The Griffen, or
The Tygre, farr
Outvie such Joys, when they without the aid
Of hawk or hound have preyd
Upon their game, & needed not, like thee,
For their wilde pastimes borrowers to be.

6

Is it not fine
Delight to win
This rare applause when thou in weary sweat
Dost from thy sport retreat:
Behold, the Man, & hawks & hounds are come
Ev'n with a conquerd hare or partridge home.

7

Then, yf you will,
Bate the mad hell
Of oathes which haunts this trade: yet can I not
Be charmd to toile in what
Pretendeth not to yeild me other gains
Then onely this, My Labour for my Pains.

8

That Sport is known
Best to thine own
Huntsmen & falkners; yet will never they
Unless by ample Pay

417

Be charmd to follow it: 'tis not the Game,
No, 'tis thy Money which delighteth them.

9

But noblest things,
Princes & Kings
Are of these Games the granted Soverains too:
And what yf I have no
Ambition to play like them? though they
Perhaps seek nothing less in Sports than Play.

10

Yet please thy will
And play thy fill;
But tie not me to this thy Loosnes, who
Perchance know what to do.
What yf I rather list to hunt, as high
As Nimrod in the feilds of History?

11

What yf I take
Delight to make
My Contemplations resolute wings outstretch
Thy hawks sublimest reach?
On, on, for me: yf I above it am,
Let me alone, I shall not spoil thy game.