Midst intersecting cuts and winding ways

The huntsman cheers his dogs, and anxious strays
Where every narrow riding, even shorn,

Gives back the echo of his mellow horn:
Till fresh and lightsome, every power untried,

The starting fugitive leaps by his side;
His lifted finger to his ear he plies,

And the view halloo bids a chorus rise

Of dogs quick-mouth'd, and shouts that mingle loud,
As bursting thunder rolls from cloud to cloud.
With ears erect, and chest of vigorous mould,
O'er ditch, o'er fence, unconquerably bold,
The shining courser lengthens every bound,

And his strong foot-locks suck the moisten'd ground,
As from the confines of the wood they pour,

And joyous villages partake the roar.

O'er heath far stretch'd, or down, or valley low,
The stiff-limb'd peasant, glorying in the show,
Pursues in vain; where youth itself soon tires,
Spite of the transports that the chase inspires;
For who unmounted long can charm the eye,
Or hear the music of the leading cry?

Bloomfield

WITH footstep slow, in furry pall yclad,
His brows enwreath'd with holly never sere,
Old Christmas comes, to close the wanèd year,
And aye the shepherd's heart to make right glad :
Who, when his teeming flocks are homeward had,
To blazing hearth repairs, and nut-brown beer;
And views, well pleased, the ruddy prattlers dear
Hug the grey mongrel; meanwhile, maid and lad
Squabble for roasted crabs. Thee, sire, we hail,
Whether thine aged limbs thou dost enshroud
In vest of snowy white and hoary veil,

Or wrapp'st thy visage in a sable cloud;

Thee we proclaim with mirth and cheer, nor fail
To greet thee well with many a carol loud.

Bampfylde.

CHRISTMAS COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR.

THOSE Christmas bells as sweetly chime,

As on the day when first they rung

So merrily in the olden time,

And far and wide their music flung :
Shaking the tall grey ivied tower,
With all their deep melodious power:
They still proclaim to every ear,

Old Christmas comes but once a year.

Then he came singing through the woods,

And pluck'd the holly bright and green;

Pull'd here and there the ivy buds ;

Was sometimes hidden, sometimes seen-
Half-buried 'neath the mistletoe,

His long beard hung with flakes of snow;
And still he ever caroll'd clear,

Old Christmas comes but once a year.

He merrily came in days of old,

When roads were few, and ways were foul,

Now stagger'd, now some ditty troll'd,

Now drank deep from his wassail bowl;

His holly silver'd o'er with frost.

Nor never once his way he lost;

For, reeling here and reeling there,
Old Christmas comes but once a year.

The hall was then with holly crown'd,

'T was on the wild-deer's antlers placed;

It hemm'd the batter'd armour round,
And every ancient trophy graced.