Beasts of Chase. 227 



" So have I seen some fearful hare maintain, 

 A course, till tired before the dog she lay, 

 Who stretched behind her pants upon the plain, 

 Past power to kill, as she to get away." 



On the other side are ranged all the rural poets : Hurdis, 

 Clare, Grahame, Bloomfield, Burns, and the rest ; and 

 Cowper, Thomson, and Wordsworth weigh in their sym- 

 pathies with the gentler majority — 



" Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare. 

 O'er a weak, harmless, flying creature " — 



and delight with Grahame in her escape either by her fleet- 

 ness of foot, when — 



" She scorns 

 Thy utmost speed, and from the thistly lea 

 Espies secure thy puzzled fruitless searcli ; " 



or by her cunning, when — 



" With step reversed 

 She forms the doubling maze, then ere the morn 

 Peeps ilirough the clouds, leaps to her close recess ; " 



or by some accident, as when, according to Grahame, — 



("As erst befell in Clyde's fair dale) 

 She gain some floating rick ; there close she squats. 

 Now in the middle current shot along 

 In swift career, now near the eddying side, 

 Whirling amazed. 



. , . Onward meanwhile she sails. 

 Till through the broadened vale, tlie stream expands 

 In gentle curve and gliding past the bank 

 Restores her, fearful, to the fields again." 



Nor are coursing, hunting, and poaching the whole 

 of the hare's grievances, for, as Clare laments, there still 

 remains the gun. 



