The author of this rather obscure poem was born in England in 1804. A landowner and nephew to the local baronet, he was known as the poet laureate of the Taporly Hunt, and indeed of the County of Cheshire. This hunting song, which coaxes the reader into a galloping rhythm, was selected by A. Henry Higginson, MFH, for inclusion in his 1930 collection, “As Hounds Ran.” It’s a stirring hunting poem and a fine ode to a whipper-in. (My favorite stanza is Number IX.)
I
From the cradle his name has been ‘Hard-riding Dick,’
Since the time when cock-horse he bestraddled a stick;
Since the time when, un-breech’d, without saddle or rein,
He kick’d the old jackass along the green lane.
II
Dick, wasting no time o’er the classical page,
Spent his youth in the stable without any wage;
The life of poor Dick, when he enter’d his teens,
Was to sleep in the hayloft and breakfast on beans.
III
Promoted at length, Dick’s adventures began;—
A stripling on foot, but when mounted a man;
Capp’d, booted, and spurred, his young soul was on fire,
The day he was dubbed ‘Second Whip’ to the Squire.
IV
See, how Dick, like a dart, shoots ahead of the pack!
How he stops, turns, and twists, rates, and rattles them back!
The laggard exciting, controlling the rash,
He can comb down a hair with the point of his lash.
V
O! Show me that country which Dick cannot cross—
Be it open or wood, be it upland or moss,
Through the fog or the sunshine, the calm or the squall,
By daylight or starlight, or no light at all!
VI
Like a swallow can Dick o’er the water-flood skim,
And Dick, like a duck, in the saddle can swim;
Up the steep mountain-side like a cat he can crawl,
He can squeeze like a mouse through a hole in the wall!
VII
He can tame the wild young ones, inspirit the old,
The restive, the runaway, handle and hold;
Sharp steel or soft-sawder, whiche’er does the trick,
It makes little matter to Hard-riding Dick.
VIII
Bid the chief from the desert bring hither his mare,
To ride o’er the plain against Dick if he dare;
Bring Cossack or Mexican, Spaniard or Gaul,
There’s a Dick in our village will ride round them all!
IX
A whip is Dick’s scepter, a saddle Dick’s throne,
And a horse is the kingdom he rules as his own;
While grasping ambition encircles the earth,
The dominions of Dick are enclosed in a girth.
X
Three ribs hath he broken, two legs, and one arm;
But there hangs, it is said, round his neck a life-charm;
Still long odds are offer’d that Dick, when he drops,
Will die, as he lived, in his breeches and tops.
Posted December 10, 2018