HUNTING SONGS 



VI 



The chimney-shafts, wreathed with smoke, betoken 



Full many a guest within. 

 While words of welcome in honesty spoken 



The heart of each stranger win, 



VII 



A white hand unlatches her casement bar ; 



A murmur of joy resounds : 

 They're coming ! they're coming ! see, yonder they 

 are ! 



They're coming ! the hounds ! the hounds ! 



VIII 



A cloud, so it seem'd, might have dropp'd from the 

 sky 



When the sun was in the west, 

 To clothe with a mantle of crimson dye 



The lawn by those riders prest. 



IX 



Steadily, steadily, to and fro. 



Old hunters pace the ground ; 

 Heads high in air the young ones throw. 



Pawing and plunging round. 



See ! to unkennel a noisier pack, 



The school-gate open flung, 

 By the desk-weary pedant, whose heart leaps back 



To the day when himself was young. 

 70 



