  Over the valley, floating faint On a warmth of windflaw came the taint, He cocked his ears, he upped his brush, And he went up wind like an April thrush. By the Roman Road to Braiches Ridge Where the fallen willow makes a bridge, Over the brook by White Hart's Thorn, To the acres thin with pricking corn. Over the sparse green hair of the wheat, By the Clench Brook Mill at Clench Brook Leat, Through Cowfoot Pastures to Nonely Stevens, And away to Poltrewood St. Jevons. Past Tott Hill Down all snaked with meuses, Past Clench St. Michael and Naunton Crucis, Of a dog who heard him foamed his chain, Then off, as the farmer's window opened, Past Stonepits Farm to Upton Hope End; Over short sweet grass and worn flint arrows, And the three dumb hows of Tencombe Barrows; And away and away with a rolling scramble, Through the blackthorn and up the bramble, And his red fell clean for being married. For clicketting time and Ghost Heath Wood Had put the violet in his blood. A dog who heard him foamed his chain At Tencombe Rings near the Manor Linney, His foot made the great black stallion whinny, And the stallion's whinny aroused the stable And the bloodhound bitches stretched their cable, And the clink of the bloodhound's chain aroused The sweet-breathed kye as they chewed and drowsed, And the stir of the cattle changed the dream Of the cat in the loft to tense green gleam. The red-wattled black cock hot from Spain Crowed from his perch for dawn again, Gurgled, beak-down, like men in church, They crooned in the dark, lifting one red eye In the raftered roost as the fox went by. By Tencombe Regis and Slaughters Court, Through the great grass square of Roman Fort, By Nun's Wood Yews and the Hungry Hill, And the Corpse Way Stones all standing still, By Seven Springs Mead to Deerlip Brook, And a lolloping leap to Water Hook. Then with eyes like sparks and his blood awoken Over the grass to Water's Oaken, And over the hedge and into ride In Ghost Heath Wood for his roving bride. And found a kennel and gone to bed On a shelf of grass in a thick of gorse That would bleed a hound and blind a horse. There he slept in the mild west weather With his nose and brush well tucked together, He slept like a child, who sleeps yet hears With the self who needs neither eyes nor ears. There he slept in the mild west weather With his nose and brush well tucked together. He slept while the pheasant cock untucked His head from his wing, flew down and kukked, While the drove of the starlings whirred and wheeled Out of the ash-trees into field. While with great black flags that flogged and paddled Straddled wide on the moist red cheese Of the furrows driven at Uppat's Leas. Down in the village, men awoke, The chimneys breathed with a faint blue smoke, The fox slept on, though tweaks and twitches, Due to his dreams, ran down his flitches. The fox slept on, though tweaks and twitches The cows were milked and the yards were sluict, And the cocks and hens let out of roost, Windows were opened, mats were beaten, All men's breakfasts were cooked and eaten, But out in the gorse on the grassy shelf, The sleeping fox looked after himself. Deep in his dream he heard the life Of the woodland seek for food or wife, The hop of a stoat, a buck that thumped, The squeal of a rat as a weasel jumped, The blackbird's chackering scattering crying, The rustling bents from the rabbits flying, Cows in a byre, and distant men, And Condicote church-clock striking ten. With a rough-haired terrier following fast. The boy's sweet whistle and dog's quick yap Woke the fox from out of his nap. The boy's sweet whistle and dog's quick yap Woke the fox from out of his nap. |
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