Hunting Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

Our King the first William, Hugh Lupus our Earl,
Then poaching, I ween, was no sport for a churl;
A noose for his neck who a snare should contrive,
Who skinn'd a dead buck was himself flay'd alive!

III

Our Normandy nobles right dearly, I trow,
They loved in the forest to bend the yew bow;
They wound their “recheat” and their “mort” on the horn,
And they laugh'd the rude chase of the Saxon to scorn.

IV

In right of his bugle and greyhounds, to seize
Waif, pannage, agistment and windfallen trees,
His knaves through our forest Ralph Kingsley dispers'd,
Bow-bearer in chief to Earl Randle the first.

V

This horn the Grand Forester wore at his side
Whene'er his liege lord chose a hunting to ride;
By Sir Ralph and his heirs for a century blown,
It pass'd from their lips to the mouth of a Done.

VI

O! then the proud falcon, unloos'd from the glove,
Like her master below, play'd the tyrant above;
While faintly, more faintly, were heard in the sky,
The silver-ton'd bells as she darted on high.

VII

Then rous'd from sweet slumber, the ladie high born,
Her palfrey would mount at the sound of the horn;
Her palfrey uptoss'd his rich trappings in air,
And neigh'd with delight such a burden to bear.

VIII

Vers'd in all woodcraft and proud of her skill,
Her charms in the forest seem'd lovelier still;
The Abbot rode forth from the abbey so fair,
Nor lov'd the sport less when a bright eye was there.

IX

Thou Palatine prophet! whose fame I revere
(Woe be to that bard who speaks ill of a seer),
Forewarn'd of thy fate, as our legends report,
Thou wert born in a forest and “clemm'd” in a court.

X

Now goading thine oxen, now urging amain
Fierce monarchs to battle on Bosworth's red plain;

“A foot with two heels, and a hand with three thumbs!”
Good luck to the land when this prodigy comes!

XI

“Steeds shall by hundreds seek masters in vain,
Till under their bellies the girths rot in twain;”
'Twill need little skill to interpret this dream,
When o'er the brown forest we travel by steam!

XII

Here hunted the Scot whom, too wise to show fight,
No war, save the war of the woods, could excite;
His learning, they say, did his valour surpass,
Though a hero when arm'd with a couteau de chasse.

XIII

Ah! then came the days when to England's disgrace,
A King was her quarry, and warfare her chase;
Old Noll for their huntsman! a puritan pack!
With psalms on their tongues—but with blood in their track.

XIV

Then Charlie our King was restor'd to his own,
And again the blythe horn in the forest was blown;
Steeds from the desert then cross'd the blue wave
To contend on our turf for the prizes he gave.

XV

Ere Bluecap and Wanton taught fox-hounds to skurry,
With music in plenty—O! where was the hurry?
When each nag wore a crupper, each Squire a pigtail;
When our toast “The Brown Forest,” was drunk in brown ale.

XVI

The fast ones came next, with a wild fox in view,
“Ware hole!” was a caution then heeded by few;
Oppos'd by no cops, by no fences confin'd,
O'er whinbush and heather they swept like the wind.

XVII

Behold! in the soil of our forest once more,
The sapling takes root as in ages of yore;
The oak of old England with branches outspread,
The pine-tree above them uprearing its head.

XVIII

Where, 'twixt the whalebones, the widow sat down,
Who forsook the Black forest to dwell in the Brown,
There, where the flock on sweet herbage once fed,
The blackcock takes wing, and the fox-cub is bred.

XIX

This timber the storms of the ocean shall weather,
And sail o'er the waves as we sail'd o'er the heather;
Each plant of the forest, when launch'd from the stocks,
May it run down a foeman as we do a Fox.