YOU slipped through the hedgerow's high tangle of bramble, You knew of the gap by the hazel-tree's trunk, As sharp as a needle, as red as a Campbell, Surprised, very likely, but not in a funk; Demure as a kitten, yet wise and hard-bitten, You pricked a keen ear to the crash in the scrub, Where Grateful and Glitter had stirred up the litter, O bandit beginner—O cool little cub! You went like a dream, yet an eye of cold yellow You cocked in a crafty but confident glance, As much as to tell me, "Now, be a good fellow, Say nothing about it and give us a chance; Those lashing white ladies can gallop like Hades, They'd slate me—at present—in less than a mile; I'm small, I'm a baby, sit quiet, and maybe I'll live to reward you with something worth while!" Discreetly I watched you dive under the double; I moved not an eyelid, I give you my word; If out of the belt by the ten-acre stubble A jay screamed a menace, well, nobody heard; For far in the whinny, green depths of the spinney A brother, ill-fated, was biting the mud, Borne down in a flurry of furies that worry And bristle and clamour for blood, and for blood! And so it's a bargain, my boy, you'll remember; Some day we shall ask you to settle the bill, Some soft, misty day in a distant December, When you, a great dog-fox, glide out down the hill: They'll find you by noonlight, and run you till moonlight, And I would be with them the whole of the day, By brook and by village, by grass-land and tillage, To lose you, or eat you, a county away! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PIANO by DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE BURIAL OF THE MINNISINK by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW SONNET: 107 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE WALLS by WILLIAM HERVEY ALLEN JR. THE DEAD CHILD by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) THE SECOND BROTHER; ACT 1, SCENE 1 by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |