Sir Peter, on White Rabbit stained
Red from the brooks, Bill Ridden cheery,
Hugh Colway with his mare dead weary.
The Colonel with Marauder beat.
They turned towards a thud of feet;
Dansey, and then young Cothill came
(His chestnut mare was galloped tame).
"There's Copse, a field behind," he said.
"Those last miles put them all to bed.
They're strung along the downs like flies."
Copse and Nob Manor topped the rise.
"Thank God, a check," they said, "at last."
"Thank God, a check," they said, "at last."
"They cannot own it; you must cast."
"They cannot own it; you must cast,"
Sir Peter said. The soft horn blew,
Tom turned the hounds up wind; they drew
Up wind, down hill, by spinney side.
They tried the brambled ditch; they tried
The swamp, all choked with bright green grass
And clumps of rush and pools like glass,
Long since, the dead men's drinking pond.
They tried the White Leaved Oak beyond,
But no hound spoke to it or feathered.
The horse heads drooped like horses tethered,
The men mopped brows. "An hour's hard run.
Ten miles," they said, "we must have done.
It's all of six from Colston's Gorses."
The lucky got their second horses.
The time ticked by. "He's lost," they muttered.
A pheasant rose. A rabbit scuttered.
Men mopped their scarlet cheeks and drank.
They drew down wind along the bank,
(The Wan Way) on the hill's south spur,
Grown with dwarf oak and juniper
Like dwarves alive, but no hound spoke.
The seepings made the ground one soak.
They turned the spur; the hounds were beat.
Then Robin shifted in his seat
Watching for signs, but no signs shewed.
"I'll lift across the Godsdown Road,
Beyond the spinney," Robin said.
Tom turned them; Robin went ahead.
Beyond the copse a great grass fallow
Stretched towards Stoke and Cheddesdon Mallow,
A rolling grass where hounds grew keen.
"Yoi doit, then; this is where he's been,"
Said Robin, eager at their joy.
"Yooi, Joyful, lad, yooi, Cornerboy.
They're on to him."
