The Poets Flocks. 239 



" If at the crowding flock 

 He bay presumptuous, or with eager haste 

 Pursue them scattered o'er the verdant plain, 

 In the foul fact attached, to the strong ram 

 Tie fast the rash offender. See ! at first 

 His horned companion, fearful and amazed, 

 Shall drag him trembling o'er the rugged ground. 

 Then, with his load fatigued, shall turn his head, 

 And with his curled hard front incessant peal 

 The panting wretch, till, breathless and astunned, 

 Stretched on the turf he lie. Then spare not thou 

 The twining whip, but ply his bleeding sides. 

 Lash after lash, and with thy threat'ning voice 

 Harsh echoing from the hills, inculcate loud 

 His vile offence," 



Even if there is no malicious intent, the presence of a 

 strange dog is enough to bring excitement into their day. 

 "Look," says Hood, 



" How a panicked flock will stare. 

 And huddle close and start and wheel about, 

 Watching the roaming mongrel here and there;" 



and Grahame, how " the startled Iambs with bickering haste, 

 fly to their mother's side and gaze around." 



Sportsmen are out and the guns alarm them, as so many 

 poets note. The passing train, the whirring covey, the 

 shouting plough-boy, are each of them episodes of puzzling 

 interest to the woolly ones. Yet they have their amuse- 

 ments also. Panic is not their only dissipation. They are 

 " sportive " — especially as lambs. 



" I am so old, so old I can write a letter, 

 My birthday lessons are done ; 

 The lambs play always, they know no better. 

 They are only one times one." 



The lost lamb affords a theme for countless excellent 

 passages. Who has not, in the course of a country walk, 

 come, as Clare does, upon the small wanderer on the wrono- 



