Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1074

 JOHN DAVIDSON

'Let your gelding be: if you check or chide

He stumbles at once and you're out of the hunt; For three hundred gentlemen, able to ride, On hunters accustom'd to bear the brunt, Accustomed to bear the brunt,

Are after the runnable stag, the stag, The runnable stag with his kingly crop, Brow, bay and tray and three on top, The right, the runnable stag.'

��By perilous paths in coomb and dell,

The heather, the rocks, and the river-bed, The pace grew hot, for the scent lay well, And a runnable stag goes right ahead, The quarry went right ahead Ahead, ahead, and fast and far; His antler'd crest, his cloven hoof,- Brow, bay and tray and three aloof, The stag, the runnable stag.

��For a matter of twenty miles and more,

By the densest hedge and the highest wall, Through herds of bullocks he baffled the lore Of harbourer, huntsman, hounds and all, Of harbourer, hounds and all The stag of warrant, the wily stag, For twenty miles, and five and five, He ran, and he never was caught alive, This stag, this runnable stag.

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