The south wind was whispering low in the firs,
A pale sun was gilding the curve of the hill
When we turned on to grass with a touch of the spurs
And caught up the crowd below Dittany Mill.
She greeted the scarlet, as always her way,
With a plunge and a kick disconcertingly high,
And I knew if Fate gave us a galloping day
We should set them the pace. Mother Hubbard and I.
Hounds were scarce through the ditch into Dittany Gorse
When they found him, and out over banking and rail
Came the huntsman full tilt on his thoroughbred horse.
And blew them away down the best of the vale.
A hundred keen horsemen rode hard in his wake
Over sound-going grass where the low meadows lie;
There were hedges to crash through and binders to break.
But we touched not a twig. Mother Hubbard and I,
The brook in the bottom took more than its share
How many were down in it nobody knows !
She reefed and she raced at it, good little mare ;
And I held her then gave her the rein as she rose.
She sailed into space like a bird in its flight ;
There was nothing in front but a glint of the sky.
Then she landed as softly as sea-gulls alight.
We had pounded the field, Mother Hubbard and I.
Behind us, we knew, was the cream of the Hunt,
Collecting its hat and comparing its ills,
While the best pack in England was screaming in front
On the line of a hill-fox away to his hills.
Full speed up the broad river-meadows we flew ;
The fence at the top was both solid and high,
But we had it exactly where hounds had gone through,
And we had it alone. Mother Hubbard and I.
The straps of her breastplate were lathered in white
As we slanted the slope, and her flanks were a-foam.
For a horseman must ride like a wind of the night
When the mask of a hill-fox is set for his home ;
But she cocked a brown ear to the clamorous call
That rose with the breeze as it racketed by.
And like mist on the moor we slid over the wall
And went galloping on. Mother Hubbard and I.
It was dusk when the huntsman took over his hounds
As we turned down the lane with the brush at our
girth ;
We had killed him alone under Beverly's Bounds
And had torn him to pieces in sight of his earth.
The wind rose. Around us the beech-leaves were
whirled
And purple the clouds scurried over the sky,
But proud and contented at peace with the world
We splashed through the pools, Mother Hubbard and I.
