Lost Hound illustration by Jane Gaston from the book of the same name by Robert AshcomYoung Entry—a common phrase used to describe the puppies just entered into the pack. Very soon, most of us will be watching them with a mixture of curiosity and expectation. To the huntsman, they hold the keys to his future successes or disappointments; to the Masters they are the ratification or the despair of their breeding philosophies; to those members of the field who have walked hounds, a few are dear and even exasperating friends known practically from the cradle; to most fieldmembers, they are a curious batch of newcomers from whom much is expected. But imagine entering the pack from the puppies’ point of view—suddenly turned loose for the first time midst a bewildering flurry of horses, staff, new sounds, and new sights. After a year of control and repression, the puppy is now free to blossom into the being its up-to-now-stifled genes have urged it to be. How frightening and at the same time how exhilarating! And then the moment when, experimenting with its freedom and following its nose, it suddenly finds itself completely alone for the first time ever. And utterly lost. Here’s a sympathetic look by Will Ogilvie.
The winter sunset lit the leafless trees
With gold and crimson as the short day waned;
The wind had ceased its plaintive melodies;
The woodland darkened, and deep silence reigned.
Then sudden from the firs there rose a wail,
A cry that shook the heavens with distress;
A lost hound stood, one foot upon the rail,
Telling the crescent moon his loneliness.
Hunting some cold scent with no comrade near,
From all the laughing world his feet had strayed,
Until the shadows wrapped him, and his fear
Pursued him like an ogre through the glade.
But now with gold stars gathering in the blue,
And landmarks slowly fading from his sight,
With broad fields round him and no field he knew,
He cried his childish doubtings to the night.
Then far a way he heard a questing horn;
The whip returning for his one lost hound.
He slipped between the rails with hope new-born
And loped across the stubble to the sound.
“Reveller! Reveller!—Come along boy!”
The big hound heard the comfort of his name.
The glint of scarlet filled his cup of joy;
Out of the shadows like a wraith he came.
“The Lost Hound” by Will H. Ogilvie (1869–1963)
Posted August 1, 2011