The Hunter’s Song
Rise! Sleep no more! ’Tis a noble morn!
The dews hang thick on the fringéd thorn,
And the frost shrinks back like a beaten hound,
Under the steaming, steaming ground.
Behold where the billowy clouds flow by,
And leave us alone in the clear gray sky!
Our horses are ready and steady,—So, ho!
I’m gone like a dart from the Tartar’s bow.
Hark, hark!—who calleth the maiden Morn
From her sleep in the woods and the stubble corn?
The horn—the horn!
The merry sweet ring of the hunter’s horn!
Now through the copse where the fox is found
And over the stream at a mighty bound,
And over the high lands and over the low,
O’er furrows, o’er meadows the hunters go!
Away! as the hawk flies full at his prey
So flieth the hunter,—away, away!
From the burst at the corn till set of sun,
When the red fox dies, and the day is done!
Hark, hark!—What sound on the wind is borne?
’Tis the conquering voice of the hunter’s horn.
The horn,—the horn!
The merry bold voice of the hunter’s horn!
Sound, sound the horn! To the hunter good
What’s the gully deep, or the roaring flood?
Right over he bounds, as the wild stag bounds,
At the heels of his swift, sure, silent hounds.
O what delight can a mortal lack
When he once is firm on his horse’s back,
With his stirrups short and his snaffle strong,
And the blast of the horn for his morning song!
Hark, hark! Now home! and dream till morn
Of the bold sweet sound of the hunter’s horn!
The horn, the horn!
Oh, the sound of all sounds is the hunter’s horn!
Barry Cornwall.
(Bryan Waller Procter.)