FHL features poems by the old masters every now and again. This one will raise the hair on the back of your neck!
There are many splendid moments ‘twixt the cradle and the grave
When a man may reach to rapture, but the one that I would crave
Is the moment when a whimper in a crash of music merges
And four hundred hooves are beating like the thunder of the surges
And the pack comes out of covert like the curving of a wave.
When we see a lean fox loping like a shadow o’er the lea,
When our good horse reefs and reaches in his fretting to be free,
When the crowd are in a cluster at the narrow bridle gateway
And the few prefer the oak-rails as the sternest but the straight way
And a place among the leaders is the only place to be.
There are many thrilling moments in this life of plot and play
That can set the pulses racing, but no moment, I would say,
Like the one when Misty Morning with his reaching stride grows shorter,
With a lift of sloping shoulder, and a heave of muscled quarter
Lands you out among the leaders with a traveling fox away!