I have just put the last hand to a little poem which I think will be something to your taste. One morning lately, as I was out pretty early in the fields, sowing some grass seeds, I heard the burst of a shot from a neighbouring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded hare came crippling by me. You will guess my indignation at the inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at this season, when all of them have young ones. Indeed there is something in that business of destroying for our sport individuals in the animal creation that do not injure us materially, which I could never reconcile to my ideas of virtue.
Inhuman man! curse on thy barb’rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye!
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!
&c. &c.
Let me know how you like my poem. I am doubtful whether it would not be an improvement to keep out the last stanza but one altogether.
Cruikshank is a glorious production of the author of man. You, he, and the noble Colonel of the Crochallan Fencibles are to me
“Dear as the ruddy drops which warm my heart”
I have a good mind to make verses on you all, to the tune of “Three guid fellows ayont the glen.”
R. B.