Through the thick sumac's poison-bushes;
He runs and stumbles, leaps and clambers,
Through the dense thicket's breathless chambers.
The swamp-slime stains at his bloody tread;
The tamarack branches rasp his head;
From bog to bog, and from slough to slough,
He flees, but his foes come yelling nearer;
And ever unto his senses now,
The long-drawn bay of the hounds is clearer.
He is worn and worried, hot and panting;