English Grass
Come, horsemen all, from every field
And taste this rare delight,
And see what English pastures yield
To those whose hearts beat right!
Come, haste and quaff the stirrup-cup!
Turn down the empty glass!
The horn is blown, the hunt is up,
And here's our English grass!
And here are foxes swift to find
And fences strong to break,
And here are doubles steep and blind
That try the best to take,
And dappled hounds to keep in sight
And rivals you must pass
Before the long December night
Enshrouds the English grass!
And think it not a lightsome thing
Or feat to wake your scorn
To follow where the Pytchley swing
Or lead them with the Quorn ;
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Huntsman's Horse
The galloping seasons have slackened his pace,
And stone wall and timber have battered his knees
It is many a year since he gave up his place
To live out his life in comparative ease.
No more does he stand with his scarlet and white
Like a statue of marble girth deep in the gorse;
No more does he carry the Horn of Delight
That called us to follow the huntsman's old horse.
How many will pass him and not understand,
As he trots down the road going cramped in his stride,
That he once set the pace to the best in the land
Ere they tightened his curb for a lady to ride!
When the music begins and a right one's away,
When hoof-strokes are thudding like drums on the ground,
The old spirit wakes in the worn-looking grey
And the pride of his youth comes to life at a bound.
He leans on the bit and he lays to his speed,
To the winds of the open his stiffness he throws,
And if spirit were all he'd be up with the lead
Where the horse that supplants him so easily goes.
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Opening Run
The rain-sodden grass in the ditches is dying,
The berries are red to the crest of the thorn ;
Coronet-deep where the beech leaves are lying
The hunters stand tense to the twang of the horn ;
Where rides are re-filled with the green of the mosses,
All foam-flecked and fretful their long line is strung,
You can see the white gleam as a starred forehead tosses,
You can hear the low chink as a bit-bar is flung.
The world's full of music. Hounds rustle the rover
Through brushwood and fern to a glad 'Gone away!'
With a 'Come along, Pilot! '-one spur-touch and over-
The huntsman is clear on his galloping grey;
Before him the pack's running straight on the stubble-
Toot-toot-too-too-too-oot ! ,_, Tow-row-ow-ow-ow ! '
The leaders are clambering up through the double
And glittering away on the brown of the plough.
The front rank, hands down, have the big fence's measure;
The faint hearts are craning to left and to right;
The Master goes through with a crash on The Treasure,
The grey takes the lot like a gull in his flight.
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Music of the Chase
I don't know any tune from any other,
I couldn't sing a song if I were paid,
I couldn't for the ransom of a brother,
Hum a single thing that anybody played.
But I know one melody
That can stir the heart of me-
It's the mad and merry challenge of the horn !
With the chime of hounds that follow,
And the cheer and rate and holloa
That can shake the very dewdrops from the thorn!
I couldn't make a fortune with a fiddle,
I scarce can sing a psalm-tune in a pew,
I couldn't lead a partner 'down the middle'
With a more than sporting chance of getting through.
I couldn't for my life
Play a cornet or a fife
And the flute was never any friend of mine;
But I do appreciate
When a yokel on a gate
Gives a holloa that can hold us to the line!
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Man to Follow
Apart from the crowd with its banter and mirth,
Sitting loose on his mare with an eye to the whins,
He has looked to his curb, he has tightened his girth,
He has marked out a place where the big double thins.
Here's a good one to follow,
To follow, to follow-
A good one to follow when business begins.
'Mid the murmur of meeting, the laugh and the joke,
'Mid the trampling of horses, the cheer and the rate,
He has caught the low whimper when Challenger spoke
And has seen the raised hat of the man by the gate.
He's the right one to follow,
To follow, to follow,
The right one to follow and trust with your fate.
When they tumble from covert, each hound giving tongue,
When they carry it, confident, over the plough,
When the hurrying Field down the headland is strung,
Here's the man for your money! You follow him now!
He's the right one to follow,
To follow, to follow,
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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Drought
My road is fenced with the bleached, white bones
And strewn with the blind, white sand,
Beside me a suffering, dumb world moans
On the breast of a lonely land.
On the rim of the world the lightnings play,
The heat-waves quiver and dance,
And the breath of the wind is a sword to slay
And the sunbeams each a lance.
I have withered the grass where my hot hoofs tread,
I have whitened the sapless trees,
I have driven the faint-heart rains ahead
To hide in their soft green seas.
I have bound the plains with an iron band,
I have stricken the slow streams dumb!
To the charge of my vanguards who shall stand?
Who stay when my cohorts come?
The dust-storms follow and wrap me round;
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Horse of your Heart
When you've ridden a four-year-old half of the day
And, foam to the fetlock, they lead him away,
With a sigh of contentment you watch him depart
While you tighten the girths on the horse of your heart.
There is something between you that both understand
As it thrills an old message from bit-bar to hand.
As he changes his feet in that plunge of desire
To the thud of his hoofs all your courage takes fire.
When an afternoon fox is away, when begins
The rush down the headland that edges the whins,
When you challenge the Field, making sure of a start,
Would you ask any horse but this horse of your heart?
There's the rasping big double a green one would shirk,
But the old fellow knows it as part of his work;
He has shortened his stride, he has measured the task,
He is up, on, and over as clean as you'd ask.
There's the water before you-no novice's test,
But a jump to try deeply the boldest and best;
Just a tug at the leather, a lift of the ear,
And the old horse is over it-twenty foot clear.
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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As I wandered home
As I wandered home
By Hedworth Combe
I heard a lone horse whinney,
And saw on the hill
Standing statue-still
At the top of the old oak spinney
A rough-haired hack
With a girl on his back-
And 'Hounds!' I said- 'for a guinea!'
The wind blew chill
Over Larchey Hill,
And it couldn't have blown much colder;
Her nose was blue,
And her pigtails two
Hung damply over her shoulder;
She might have been ten,
Or - guessing again -
She might have been twelve months older.
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Bush, My Lover
The camp-fire gleams resistance
To every twinkling star;
The horse-bells in the distance
Are jangling faint and far;
Through gum-boughs torn and lonely
The passing breezes sigh;
In all the world are only
My star-crowned Gove and I.
The still night wraps Macquarie;
The white moon, drifting slow,
Takes back her silver glory
From watching waves below;
To dalliance I give over
Though half the world may chide,
And clasp my one true Lover
Here on Macquarie side.
The loves of earth grow olden
Or kneel at some new shrine;
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The True Sportsman
The real ones, the right ones, the straight ones and the true,
The pukka, peerless sportsmen-their numbers are but few;
The men who keep on playing though the sun be in eclipse,
The men who go on losing with a laugh upon their lips.
The men who care but little for the laurels of renown;
The men who turn their horses back to help the man that's down;
The fearless and the friendly ones, the courtly and the kind;
The men whose lion courage is with gentleness combined.
My notion of a sportsman ? - I'll try, then, to define.
For preference well bred, of course, of some clean- living line;
With pride of place and ancestry whose service was the King's;
With all a noble knight's contempt for low, left- handed things.
Not the ‘good sport' who burdens us with cheap and futile chat
Of the 'pedigree' of this one and the ‘outside chance' of that,
But a man who loves good horses just to handle them and ride
Where the fences call to valour and the English grass lies wide.
All the best and truest sportsmen I have lived with and have known
Have a changeless faith within them which their simple hearts enthrone,
Believing in the God that made the green fields passing fair,
The God that gave good courage - and to every man his share.
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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