THE BOBBERY PACK.
Andy Hartigan's dead and gone
Over the hills and further yet,
But he drank good port and his red face shone
Like a cider apple of Somerset.
Ten strange couples o' hounds he had
(Gaunt old brutes that had hunted fox
Back in the days when Noah was a lad),
Touched in the bellows and gone at the hocks—
Hounds he'd stole from a Harrier pack,
Hounds he'd borrowed an' begged an' found,
Grey an' yellow an' tan an' black,
Every conceivable kind o' hound.
He called them "harriers," and a few
Were harriers—back when the world began—
But they weren't particular where they drew
An' they weren't particular what they ran.
I mind him once of a bygone morn
Ruddy an' round on his flea-bit horse,
Twangin' a note on his battered horn
An' cappin' them into the Frenchman gorse.
They pushed a brown hare out of her form
An' swung on her line with a crash of tongues;
But a vixen crossed an' her scent was warm,
So they ran her, screechin' to burst their lungs.
They ran her into my lord's demesne,
Where my lady's fallows were grazing free;
They picked a stag and followed again,
Singing like souls in ecstasy.
They chased the stag up over the ridge
With lolling tongues an' with heaving flanks;
They lost him down by the Cluddlah bridge,
But killed an otter on Cluddlah's banks.
They had no shape an' they had no style;
Their manners were bad an' their morals slack;
They were noisy, but wonderful versatile,
Andy Hartigan's bobbery pack.