Hunting Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ere our Kennel a coal-hole envelop'd in smoke,
Blood and bone shall give way to hot water and coke;
Make and shape, pace and pedigree, held as a jest,
All the power of the Stud in a copper comprest;

II

The green collar faded, good fellowship o'er,
Sir Peter and Barry remember'd no more,
From her Tarporley perch ere the Swan shall drop down,
And her death-note be heard through the desolate town,

III

Let Geoffrey record, in the reign of Queen Vic,
How the horse and his rider could still do the trick;
Let his journal, bequeath'd to posterity, show
How their sires rode a hunting in days long ago.

IV

In colours unfading let Calvert design
A field not unworthy a sport so divine;

For when Joe was their Huntsman, and Tom their first Whip,
Who then could the chosen of Cheshire outstrip?

V

Let the Laureate, ere yet he be laid on the shelf,
Say how dearly he lov'd the diversion himself;
How his Muse o'er the field made each season a cast,
Gave a cheer to the foremost, and rated the last.

VI

All the glories of Belvoir let Delamere tell,
And how Leicestershire griev'd when he bade them farewell;
Tell how oft with the Quorn he had liv'd through a burst
When the few were selected, the many dispers'd.

VII

With so graceful a seat, and with spirits so gay,
Let them learn from Sir Richard, erect on his grey,
How the best of all cures for a pain in the back
Is to sit on the pigskin and follow the pack.

VIII

Say, Glegg, how the chace requir'd judgment and skill,
How to coax a tir'd horse over valley and hill;

How his shoe should be shap'd, how to nurse him when sick,
And when out how to spare him by making a nick.

IX

Charley Cholmondeley, make known how, in Wellesley's campaign
When the mail arriv'd loaded with laurels from Spain,
How cheers through the club-room were heard to resound,
While, upfill'd to the brim, the Quasitum went round.

X

Let Wicksted describe and futurity learn
All the points of a hound, from the nose to the stern;
He whose joy 'tis to dance, without fiddle or pipe,
To the tune of Who-whoop with a fox in his gripe,

XI

Say, Dorfold's black Squire, how, when trundling ahead,
Ever close to your side clung the Colonel in red;
He who, charge what he would, never came to a hitch,
A fence or a Frenchman, it matter'd not which.

XII

Let Cornwall declare, though a long absentee,
With what pain and what grief he deserted High Legh;
How he car'd not to prance on the Corso at Rome,
While such sport Winterbottom afforded at home.

XIII

The rules of hard riding let Tollemache impart,
How to lean o'er the pommel and dash at a start;
Emerging at once from a crowd in suspense,
How in safety he rides who is first at the fence.

XIV

How with caution 'tis pleasanter far to advance
Let them learn from De Tabley, Tom Tatton and France;
Who void of ambition still follow the chace,
Nor think that all sport is dependent on pace.

XV

Twin managers! tell them, Smith Barry from Cork,
And Dixon, who studied the science in York,
Though we boast but one neck to our Tarporley Swan,
Two heads in the kennel are better than one.

XVI

Let Entwistle, Blackburne, and Trafford disown
Those Lancashire flats, where the sport was unknown;

Releas'd from St. Stephen's let Patten declare
How fox-hunting solac'd a senator's care.

XVII

Let the bones of the steed which Sir Philip bestrode
'Mid the fossils at Oulton be carefully stow'd;
For the animal soon, whether hunter or war-horse,
Will be rare in the land as an Ichthyosaurus.

XVIII

Still distant the day, yet in ages to come,
When the gorse is uprooted, the fox-hound is dumb,
May verse make immortal the deeds of the field,
And the shape of each steed be on canvas reveal'd.

XIX

Let the pencil be dipt in the hues of the chace,
Contentment and health be pourtray'd in each face;
Let the foreground display the select of the pack,
And Chester's green vale be outstretch'd in the back!

XX

When the time-honour'd race of our gentry shall end,
The poor no protector, the farmer no friend,

They shall here view the face of the old Tatton Squire,
And regret the past sport that once gladden'd our Shire.