<p class="poetry"> <SPAN name="page91"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>We are breaking from the tangle<br/>
We are out upon the green,<br/>
There’s a bank and a hurdle<br/>
With a quickset between.<br/>
You must steady him and try it,<br/>
You are over with a scramble.<br/>
Here’s a wattle! You must fly it,<br/>
And you land among the bramble,<br/>
For it’s roughish, toughish going in the morning.</p>
<p class="poetry"> ’Ware the bog by the
Grove<br/>
As you pound through the slush.<br/>
See the whip! See the huntsman!<br/>
We are close upon his brush.<br/>
’Ware the root that lies before you!<br/>
It will trip you if you
blunder.<br/>
<SPAN name="page92"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
92</span>’Ware the branch that’s drooping o’er
you!<br/>
You must dip and swerve from
under<br/>
As you gallop through the woodland in the morning.</p>
<p class="poetry"> There were fifty at the
find,<br/>
There were forty at the mill,<br/>
There were twenty on the heath,<br/>
And ten are going still.<br/>
Some are pounded, some are shirking,<br/>
And they dwindle and diminish<br/>
Till a weary pair are working,<br/>
Spent and blowing, to the
finish,<br/>
And we hear the shrill whoo-ooping in the morning.</p>
<p class="poetry"> The horse is bedded down<br/>
Where the straw lies deep,<br/>
The hound is in the kennel,<br/>
He is yapping in his sleep.<br/>
<SPAN name="page93"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
93</span>But the fox is in the spinney<br/>
Lying snug in earth and burrow.<br/>
And I’ll lay an even guinea<br/>
We could find again to-morrow,<br/>
If we chose to go a-hunting in the morning.</p>
<h2><SPAN name="page94"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>A HUNTING MORNING</h2>
<p class="poetry">Put the saddle on the mare,<br/>
For the wet winds blow;<br/>
There’s winter in the air,<br/>
And autumn all below.<br/>
For the red leaves are flying<br/>
And the red bracken dying,<br/>
And the red fox lying<br/>
Where the oziers grow.</p>
<p class="poetry">Put the bridle on the mare,<br/>
For my blood runs chill;<br/>
And my heart, it is there,<br/>
On the heather-tufted hill,<br/>
<SPAN name="page95"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>With the
gray skies o’er us,<br/>
And the long-drawn chorus<br/>
Of a running pack before us<br/>
From the find to the kill.</p>
<p class="poetry">Then lead round the mare,<br/>
For it’s time that we began,<br/>
And away with thought and care,<br/>
Save to live and be a man,<br/>
While the keen air is blowing,<br/>
And the huntsman holloing,<br/>
And the black mare going<br/>
As the black mare can.</p>
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