HUNTING SONGS 



IV 



Up ! up I at peep-o'-day ; what may your pleasure 

 be? 

 Black-cock or ptarmigan, roebuck or hare ? 

 Bright with delight let each moment of leisure be, 

 Left in the lowlands, a fig for dull care ! 

 Wood, stream, and heather now. 

 Yielding together now, 

 Sport for all weather now, — 



Up in the morn ! 

 Pastime at Tolly now. 

 Oh ! it is jolly now. 

 Sad melancholy, now 

 Laugh her to scorn ! 

 1845. 



" Importation of Ver7nin " 



" A steamship arrived yesterday from Boulogne with a cage of live 

 foxes, consigned to order." — Daily Neius, Feb. i, 1848, at which time there 

 was much talk of the possibility of a French invasion. 



I 



"IMPORTED Vermin:" — say, thou scribbler, 

 1 when 



Those fiercer vermin on our coast alight. 

 Who bark with drumstick and with bayonet bite, 



As daily threat thy brethren of the pen ; 



When England summons her true-hearted men 

 (Whether invader to the chace invite 

 With foes or foxes, putting both to flight), 



Say, of these twain which best will serve her then. 



76 



