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...THE DISPUTE OF THE HEART AND BODY OF FRANCOIS VILLON by FRANCOIS VILLON THE LILY, FR. SONGS OF EXPERIENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE THE WILD RIDE by LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW (SEPTEMBER 25, 1857) by ROBERT TRAILL SPENCE LOWELL SONNET: 151 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE QUATRAIN: AMONG THE PINES by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |