Loud and long he gives a roar
From his very inmost core,
Which is heard behind, before,
Far and fallingly;
But the hind of softer notes,
With her calf that near her trots,
Match each other’s tuneful throats,
Crying longingly.
Her eye’s soft and tender ray
With no flaw in it,
O’er whose lid the brow is gray,
Guides her wandering feet:
Very well she walks, and bold,
Lively o’er the russet wold,
Tripping from her desert hold
Most undauntingly.
Faultless is her pace,
And her leap is full of grace—
Ha! the last when in the race
Never saw I her:
When she takes yon startled stride,
Nor once turns her head aside,
Aught to match her hasty pride
Is not known to me.
But now she’s on the heath,
As she ought to be,
Where the tender grass she seeth,
Growing dawtily;
The dry bent, the moor grass bare,
With the sappy herbs are there,
That make fat, and full, and fair,
Her plump quarters all.
And those little wells are nigh,
Where the water-cresses lie,
Above wine she likes to try
Their waves’ solacing;
Of the rye-grass, twisted rows,
On the rude hill side it grows,
Than of rarest festal shows,
Is she fonder far.
The choice increase of the earth
Forms her joyous treat;
The primrose, St John’s wort,
Tops of gowans sweet,
The new buds of the groves,
The soft heath o’er which she roves,
Are the tit-bits that she loves,
With good cause too.
For speckled, spotted, rare,
Tall, and fine, and fair,
From such food before her there
She grows sonsily;
And it is still the surest mean
To cure the weak ones and the lean,
Who for any time have been
Wasted, wan, and low.
Soon it would clothe their back
With the garb which most they lack—
That rich fat, which they can pack
Most commodiously.
She’s a flighty young hind
When leaves ward her,
Nearer her haunts where they bind
The brae border:
Lightsome and urbane
Is her gay heart, free of stain,
Tho’ rash head and somewhat vain—
Somewhat thoughtless.