Classic Poem

One day when Patrick was hunting
over slanting moor of uplands,
he paid a visit to Glen Artney
and found himself in the deer forest;
he let the dog go off a-coursing —
swift, strong, sturdy, ardent was he:
his peer was never in the country,
save Bran, owned by the Fiann's king.

A deerhound rough of coat and bristle,
stern and wild of eye and eyebrow;
good were the aspect, form and figure
of the hero that was fierce in fighting;
he would fetch the red deer from the hill-top,
and roebuck from dense undergrowth;
he used to fare forth to the mountains,
and never came he home with nothing.

A power for felling the dun stags
on the top of mounds and hills;
foe of otters and of foxes,
he was the conqueror of brocks;
the hare was cross-wise in his mouth,
they dropped together in a pit,
and they were drowned, cheek by jowl —
woeful is this to me to-night.