Classic Poem

VARIATION

'Tis the little hind of taper head
was acutest in snuffing,
with her keen, sharp nostril,
exploring the wind:
 short-tailed, slender-limbed,
 roaming throughout the fell,
 afraid of fire, she will not
 descend from her mountain;
 though she be hurried,
 no chest complaint ails her—
 her forbears were healthy;
 what time she drew breath,
 it delights me to hear
 the fleeting sound of her belling,
 fondly calling her lover
 in the season of mating.
 'Tis the stag of the wild head,
 white-buttocked of rump,
 so antlered, high-headed,
 and lusty in roaring;
 and he dwells in Ben Dobhrain,
 and is at home in her shelters.
Yea, in Ben Dobhrain—
it would tax me to tell
how many high-headed stags
abide in that forest;
 and slim-footed hind
 with her young calf following,
 showing their white scuts,
 climbing a hill-pass;
 up the scarp of Coire Chruiteir
 wends the spiky-horned party;
 when she stretches her limbs
 and breaks into a gallop,
 nought but the hoof tips
 would tread on the ground;
 of the men of the kingdom,
 who was fit to pursue her?
Erratic and rustling,
circling on green spot,
is the band on whose mind
no tinge of gloom lingered;
 They are changeable, skittish,
 slim-legged, active;
 age brings them no burden,
 gloom or dejection.
 What restored their apparel,
 flesh of rump and fore-quarters,
 was their steadfast abiding
 in the store of the forest,
 remaining by choice
 in groups on the pasture;
 the secret is the nurse
 who suckles the calves,
all speckled and dappled,
that no tempests benumb,
their hearts being gladdened
by milk of deer's hair grass;
 small-snouted and agile,
 with their white little haunches,
 their bodies made wholesome
 by salubrious spring water;
 contentedly rustling
 through the glens of sweet hill grass.
 Although the snow came
 they would not seek a steading;
 'tis the dell of Coire Altram
 they have to protect them,
amid rock-stacks and banks,
and secluded depressions,
with their sheltered beds
close against Ais an t-Sithein.