Volume 146 — THE FOX.

The birds see him first, jay and blackbird and thrush; They shriek at his coming and curse him, each one; With the clay of the vale on his pads and his brush, It's the Fallowfield fox and he's pretty near done; It's a couple of hours since a whip tally-ho'd him; Now the rookery's stooping to mob and to goad him; There's an earth on the hill, but he's cooked past believing, And his tongue's hanging out and his wet ribs are heaving. Here he comes up the field at a woebegone trot; He's stiff as a poker, he's done all he knows; Now the ploughmen'll view him as likely as not; There—they run to the paling and yell as he goes: Here's an end, if we live to be two minutes older; See, he turns a glazed eye o'er a mud-spattered shoulder; There's a hound through the hedgerow.... Game's up, and he's beaten, And he faces about with a snarl to be eaten.