236 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



living attachment for the last, though not the least, of the 

 poets, for the "King Arthur" of my friend Bulwer Lytton; 

 though my publisher shakes his head, I am resolved, I say, to 

 escape from prose, and tell one little incident in verse, abstracted 

 from the poem on the New Forest shelved for want of a pur- 

 chaser. The incident happened to me while deer-stalking in 

 the New Forest precisely as I relate it. 



' ' A buck ! I hear his idle horn 

 Strike the dead gorse or stunted thorn ; 

 Unscared by fear of me away, 



But nodding idly at the flies 



That vex'd his antlers or his eyes, 

 Or in feign'd fight at play. 

 The brake is pass'd and shallow pond, 



To where strong ferns uprear ; 

 Ascending thence the rise beyond, 



The horns again I hear. 

 We neighbour close : I steal profound, 

 Prone on my breast upon the ground, 



To where a high ridge ends. 

 Oh, what a scene the parted fern 

 Gave me the power to discern, 



For toil to make amends ! 

 An amphitheatre was made 



By close-surrounding hill ; 

 While creeping softly through the glade 



There glanced a lucid rill, 

 Cooling a carpet green, so sweet, 

 It seemed assigned to fairy feet ! 

 Old oaks withheld their stems away, 



Too heavy for the site, 

 But stretch' d their broad arms to the day, 



And cast a shadow light 

 Around the lawn ; yet still the sun 

 Found intervals to dance upon, 



And make the whole scene bright. 

 Within this wild and lovely glen 



Lay stretch'd a herd of deer ; 

 The does might number nine or ten ; 



A sleek fawn lying near. 



