  Reynard the fox And there on the night before my tale he trotted out On old Cold Crendon's windy tops Grows wintrily Blown Hilcote Copse, Wind-bitten beech with badger barrows, Where brocks eat wasp-grubs with their marrows, And foxes lie on short-grassed turf, Nose between paws, to hear the surf Of wind in the beeches drowsily. There was our fox bred lustily Three years before, and there he berthed With a roof of flint and a floor of chalk And ten bitten hens' heads each on its stalk, Some rabbits' paws, some fur from scuts, A badger's corpse and a smell of guts. And there on the night before my tale He trotted out for a point in the vale. He saw, from the cover edge, the valley Go trooping down with its droops of sally To the brimming river's lipping bend, And a light in the inn at Water's End. He heard the owl go hunting by And the shriek of the mouse the owl made die, And the purr of the owl as he tore the red Strings from between his claws and fed; The smack of joy of the horny lips He saw the farms where the dogs were barking, Cold Crendon Court and Copsecote Larking; The fault with the spring as bright as gleed, Green-slash-laced with water weed. A glare in the sky still marked the town, Though all folk slept and the blinds were down, The street lamps watched the empty square, The night-cat sang his evil there. The fox's nose tipped up and round Since smell is a part of sight and sound. Delicate smells were drifting by, The sharp nose flaired them heedfully: Partridges in the clover stubble, Crouched in a ring for the stoat to nubble. Rabbit bucks beginning to box; A hare in the dead grass near the drain, And another smell like the spring again. A faint rank taint like April coming, It cocked his ears and his blood went drumming, For somewhere out by Ghost Heath Stubs Was a roving vixen wanting cubs. |
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