Classic Poem

Let Friday be your highest hunting-tide, —
No hound nor brach nor mastiff absent thence, —
Through a low wood, by many miles of dens,
All covert, where the cunning beasts abide:
Which now driven forth, at first you scatter wide, —
Then close on them, and rip out blood and breath:
Till all your hunstmen's horns wind at the death,
And you count up how many beasts have died.
Then, men and dogs together brought, you'll say:
Go fairly greet from us this friend and that,
Bid each make haste to blithest wassailings.
Might not one vow that the whole pack had wings?
What! hither, Beauty, Dian, Dragon, what!
I think we held a royal hunt to-day.