Serve to mitigate my grief
Doggerel now and then disperses
Agonies that need relief.
(Missing birds of these is chief!)
Blankly tramping o'er the stubbles
Is a bore, to put it mild;
But, in short, to crown my troubles,
One mishap has made me riled,
Driv'n me, like the coveys, wild.
For at last I flush a partridge,