Hunting Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

I could pardon the wrongs thou hast done me, Old Time!
If thy hand would but help me the stirrup to climb;
The one pleasure left is to gaze on my mare,
Her with whom I lov'd best the excitement to share.

III

Sound wind and limb, without blemish or speck,
Her rider disabled, her owner a wreck!
Unstripp'd and unsaddled, she seems to ask why;
Unspurr'd and unbooted, I make no reply.

IV

Remembrance then dwells on each hard-ridden run,
On the country we cross'd, on the laurels we won;
Fleet limbs once extended, now cribb'd in their stall,
They speak of past triumphs, past gallops recall.

178

V

I remember, when baulk'd of our start at the find,
How we slipp'd, undismay'd, through the rabble behind;
No check to befriend us, still tracking the burst,
Till by dint of sheer swiftness the last became first.

VI

And that day I remember, when crossing the bed
Of a deep rolling river, the pack shot ahead;
How the dandies, though cas'd in their waterproof Peals,
Stood aghast as we stemm'd it, and stuck to their heels.

VII

How ere Jack with his hammer had riven the nail,
And unhing'd the park-gate, we have skimm'd the oak pale;
Over bogs where the hoof of the cocktail stuck fast,
How her foot without sinking Camilla-like pass'd.

VIII

I remember, though warn'd by the voice of Tom Rance—
“Have a care of that fence”—how we ventur'd the chance;

179

How we fac'd it and fell—from the depth of the drain
How we pick'd ourselves up, and were with 'em again.

IX

Over meadows of water, through forests of wood,
Over grass-land or plough, there is nothing like blood;
Whate'er place I coveted, thou, my good mare,
Despite of all hindrances, landed me there.

X

The dearest of friends I that man must account,
To whom on her saddle I proffer a mount;
And that friend shall confess that he never yet knew,
Till he handled my pet, what a flyer could do.

XI

Should dealers come down from the Leicestershire vale,
And turn with good gold thy own weight in the scale,
Would I sell thee? not I, for a millionaire's purse!
Through life we are wedded for better for worse.

180

XII

I can feed thee, and pet thee, and finger thy mane,
Though I ne'er throw my leg o'er thy quarters again;
Gold shall ne'er purchase one lock of thy hair,
Death alone shall bereave the old man of his mare.

1871.