Classic Poem

One hound alone has crossed the dreary height,
The deep-toned Jowler, ever staunch and true.
The chase was o'er
The tents were reared, and fires of evening shone.
The mountain's sounds had perished in the gloom,
All save the unwearied Jowler's swelling tone,
That bore to trembling stag the sounds of doom,
While every cave of night rolled back the breathing boom.
The impassioned huntsman wended up the brae,
And loud the order of desistance bawled;
But ay, as louder waxed his tyrant's say,
Louder and fiercer, Jowler, unappalled,
Across the glen, along the mountain, brawled,
Unpractised he to part till blood was seen:
Though sore by precipice and darkness galled,
He turned his dewlap to the starry sheen,
And howled in furious tone, with yelp and bay between.


There stood the monarch of the wild at bay
(The impetuous Jowler howling at his brow),
His cheeks all drenched with brine, his antlers grey,
Moving across the cliff, majestic, slow,
Like living fairy trees of blenched and leafless bough.
With ruthless shaft they pierced his heavy breast,
The baited, thirsty Jowler laps his blood;
The Royal hunter his brave hound caressed,
Lauded his zeal and spirit unsubdued;
While the staunch victor, of approval proud,
Rolled his brown back upon the prostrate slain,
Capered around in playful, whelpish mood,
As if unspent by all his toil and pain,
Then licked his crimson flue, and looked to the hills again.