Page:The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge, 1919.djvu/152

146 I followed them across a tangled way

'Til the red deer broke out and took the brow

Of a wide hill in bounces like a ball.

Beside swift Artemis I joined the chase;

We roused up kine and scattered fleecy flocks;

Crossed at a mill a swift and bubbly race;

Scaled in a wood of pine the knotty rocks;

Past a grey vision of a valley town;

Past swains at labour in their coloured frocks;

Once saw a boar upon a windy down;

Once heard a cradle in a lonely place,

And saw the red flash of a frightened fox.

We passed a garden where three maids in blue

Were talking of a queen a long time dead.

We caught a green glimpse of the sea: then thro'

A town all hills; now round a wood we sped