It’s been eye-opening to discover the many celebrated authors of classical literarature—like Rudyard Kipling—who have produced foxhunting poetry. In addition to those poets known for their sporting literature and published in these pages, Foxhunting Life readers have enjoyed the foxhunting poems of Sir Arthur Conant Doyle, William Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, and William Butler Yeats.
What follows is a brief history of foxhunting in seven stanzas, written in the fox’s voice by Rudyard Kipling.
When Samson set my brush afire
To spoil the Timnites barley,
I made my point for Leicestershire
And left Philistia early.
Through Gath and Rankesborough Gorse I fled,
And took the Coplow Road, sir!
And was a Gentleman in Red
When all the Quorn wore woad, sir!
When Rome lay massed on Hadrian’s Wall,
And nothing much was doing,
Her bored Centurions heard my call
O’ nights when I went wooing.
They raised a pack-they ran it well
(For I was there to run ’em)
From Aesica to Carter Fell,
And down North Tyne to Hunnum.
When William, landed hot for blood,
And Harold’s hosts were smitten,
I lay at earth in Battle Wood
While Domesday Book was written.
Whatever harm he did to man,
I owe him pure affection;
For in his righteous reign began
The first of Game Protection.
When Charles, my namesake, lost his mask,
And Oliver dropped his’n,
I found those Northern Squires a task,
To keep ’em out of prison.
In boots as big as milking-pails,
With holsters on the pommel,
They chevied me across the Dales
Instead of fighting Cromwell.
When thrifty Walpole took the helm,
And hedging came in fashion,
The March of Progress gave my realm
Enclosure and Plantation.
‘Twas then, to soothe their discontent,
I showed each pounded Master,
However fast the Commons went,
I went a little faster!
When Pigg and Jorrocks held the stage,
And Steam had linked the Shires,
I broke the staid Victorian age
To posts, and rails, and wires.
Then fifty mile was none too far
To go by train to covert,
Till some dam’ sutler* pupped a car,
And decent sport was over!
When men grew shy of hunting stag,
For fear the Law might try ’em,
The Car put up an average bag
Of twenty dead per diem.
Then every road was made a rink
For Coroners to sit on;
And so began, in skid and stink,
The real blood-sport of Britain!
* A sutler is a civilian provisioner to an army post, often with a shop on the post.
Posted January 29, 2019
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) is the author of The Jungle Book (1894), Captain’s Courageous (1897), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including “The Man Who Would Be King” (1888). His poems include “Mandalay” (1890), “Gunga Din” (1890), and “If” (1910). He was the first English-language writer to receive Nobel Prize in Literature (1907), and still remains the youngest recipient of that prestigious literary award.