The Fox's prophecy...Updated

These verses are thought to have been written by a Mr D.W.Nash around 1870. His predictions on the future of the British countryside are terrifyingly accurate...

Made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up

Tom Hill was in the saddle
One bright November morn
The echoing glades of Guilding Wood
Were ringing with his horn

The diamonds of the hoar frost
Were sparkling in the sun
Upon the fallen leaves the drops
Were shining one by one

The hare lay on the fallow
The robin carolled free
The linnet and the yellow finch
Twittered from tree to tree

In stately march the sable rook
Followed the clanking plough
Apart their watchful sentinel
Cawed from the toppermost bough

Peeped from her hole the fieldmouse
Amid the fallen leaves
From twig to twig the spider
Her filmy cable weaves

The waving of the pine boughs
The squirrels form disclose
And through the purple beech-tops
The whirring pheasant rose

The startled rabbit scuttled
Across the grassy ride
High in mid air the hovering hawk
Wheeled round in circles wide

The freshest wind was blowing
O'er groves of beech and oak
And through the boughs of larch and pine
The struggling sunbeam broke

The varied tints of Autumn
Still lingered on the wood
And on the leaves the morning sun
Poured out a golden flood

Soft, fleecy clouds were sailing
Across the vault of blue
A fairer hunting morning
No huntsman ever knew

All nature seemed rejoicing
That glorious morn to see
All seemed to breathe a fresher life
Beast, insect, bird and tree

But sound and sight of beauty
Fell dull on eye and ear
The huntsman's heart was heavy
His brow oppressed with care

High in his stirrips raised he stood
And long he gazed around
And breathlessly and anxiously
He listened for a sound

But nought he heard save song of bird
Or Jay's discordant cry
Or when among the treetops
The wind went murmuring by

No voice of hounds, nor sound of horn
The woods around were mute
As though the earth had swallowed up
His comrades man and brute

He thought, "I must essay to find
My hounds at any cost
A huntsman who has lost his hounds
Is but a huntsman lost"

Then round he turned his horse's head
And shook his bridle free
When he was struck by an aged fox
That sat beneath a tree

He raised his eyes in glad suprise
That huntsman keen and bold
But there was in that fox's look
That made his blood run cold

He raised his hand to touch his horn
And shout a "Tally-Ho"
But, mastered by that fox's eye
His lips refused to blow

For he was grim and gaunt of limb
With age all silvered o'er
He might have been an artic fox
Escaped from Greenlands shore

But age his vigour had not tamed
Nor dimmed his sparkling eye
Which shone with an unearthly fire
A fire could never die

And thus the huntsman he addressed
In tones distinct and clear
Who heard as they who in a dream
The fairies must hear

"Huntsman" he said a sudden thrill
Through all the listener ran
To hear a creature of the wood
Speak like a Christian man

Last of my race to me 'tis given
The future to unfold
To speak the words which never yet
Spake fox of mortal mould

Then print my words upon your heart
And stamp them on your brain
That you to others may impart
My prophecy again

Strong life is yours in manhood's prime
Your cheek with heat is red
Time has not laid his finger yet
In earnest on your head

But when your limbs are bent with age
And when your looks are grey
The sport that you have loved so well
Shall long have passed away

In vain shall generous Colmore
Your hunt consent to keep
In vain the Rendcombe baronet
With gold your store shall heap

In vain Sir Alexander
And Watson keen in vain
O'er the pleasant Cotswold hills
The joyous sport maintain

Vain all their efforts, spite of all
Draws nigh the fatal morn
When the last Cotswold fox shall hear
The latest huntsmans horn

Yet think not huntsman I rejoice
To see the end so near
Nor think the sound of horn and hound
To me a sound of fear

In my strong youth which numbers now
Full many a winter back
How scornfully I shook my brush
Before the Berkeley pack

How oft from Painswick hill I've seen
The morning mist uncurl
When Harry Airls blew the horn
Before the Wrathful Earl

How oft I've heard the Cotswold's cry
As Turner cheered the pack
And laughed to see his baffled hounds
Hang vainly on my track

Then think not that I speak in fear
Or prophecy in hate
Too well I know the doom reserved
For all my tribe by fate

Too well I know by wisdom taught
The existence of my race
O'er all wide England's green domain
Is bound up with the chase

Better in early youth and strength
The race for life to run
Than poisened like the noxious rat
Or slain by felon gun

Better by wily slight and turn
The eager hound to foil
Than slaughtered by each baser churl
Who yet shall till the soil

For not these hills alone
The doom of sport shall fall
O'er the broad face of England creeps
The shadow on the wall

The years roll on old manners change
Old customs lose their sway
New fashions rule the grandsire's garb
Moves ridicule today

The woodlands where my race has bred
Unto the axe shall yield
Hedgerow and copse shall cease to shade
The ever widening field

The manly sports of England
Shall vanish one by one
The manly blood of England
In weaker veins shall run

to be continued....

Lovely verse Geoff.. have printed it off.


libs

Wow Geoff

very sad

aww , very sad

I really don't think people realise that the countryside will cease to exist as it does today if hunting was to be banned.

As I said before, the reasons those picturesque little copses and woods are left (even if they are in the middle of a field of crops, and sodding well get in the way whenever farmers are spraying, harvesting, ploughing etc) is to provide a habitat for foxes, and since wherever foxes are there will be all manner of other wildlife, to provide habitats for pheasants, rabbits, weasels, badgers, deer, stoats as well. If the hunts are no more, many, many farmers will get rid of the habitats.

The British counrtyside is the way it is because of hunting.

Thats only about a third of the whole poem, will try to get the rest on soon...