Will H. Ogilve
The First Flight
An ode to the “gallant First Flight,” this is one Ogilvie poem that your editor has too often overlooked. No longer!
By John F. Herring
While there’s one on his feet with a tale to repeat
And another is sampling a drink,
The eager First Flight have a girth to pull tight
Or a chain to let out by a link;
While the boisterous laugh in that circle of chaff
The opening music has drowned,
You will hear the First Flight as they whisper “That’s right!’
To the note of a favorite hound.
The Thaw
"By the road where the ditches are ready to run!" / Lionel Edwards illustrationHark to the avalanche snow from the roofs
O’er eaves where the icicles melt in the sun!
Hark to the musical suck of the hoofs
By the road where the ditches are ready to run!
On the slope of the hill is a patchwork of green
And the fallows are spotted with spaces of brown,
While woodlands and copses and hedges between
Have lost the white burden that weighted them down.
The Perfect Hat
Lionel Edwards illustrationThe Bowler and the Wide-Awake,
The Topper and the Straw,
The Homburg and the Helmet
May be hats without a flaw;
The Bonnet of the Highlanders,
The Busby of the Greys
Are hats we shall remember
To the end of all our days;
The Jockey-cap of sunlit silk,
The Bishop’s Shovel-black
Can honor a cathedral town
Or grace a racing track.
But the neatest, sweetest headgear
Be it e’er so crushed or crude
Is the Hat upon the Skyline
When a forward fox is viewed.
The Puppy Walker
No members of your hunting community are loved by Masters and huntsman as dearly as the puppy walkers. Each year these intrepid folk accept the arrival of a couple of playful pups to their country home in early summer to teach them their names, walking on lead, a semblance of civilized behavior, and a taste of life outside the kennel.
In a couple of months, after the cuddly innocents have grown into marauding, thieving, hunting fanatics, the puppy walkers cry, “Uncle!” and the huntsman returns to reclaim them. The huntsman will be back the following summer, however, and these generous puppy walkers will smilingly welcome yet another couple of wide-eyed puppies to their property.
So, when your Masters praise the puppy walkers at the annual puppy show and bestow a small trophy upon those who walked the winning hounds, recall this poem by Will H. Ogilvie and give the puppy walkers their due!
Will You Walk a Puppy?
‘Will you walk a puppy?’ the Hunt enquired.
Being sportsmen, we did as the Hunt desired.
And early in June there arrived a man
With an innocent bundle of white and tan.
A fat little Foxhound, bred to the game,
With a rollicking eye and a league-long name,
And he played with a cork at the end of a string;
And walking a puppy was ‘just the thing.’
The Hoofs of Horses
The hoofs of horses, Oh! witching and sweet
Is the music earth steals from iron shod feet;
No whisper of lover, no trilling of bird
Can stir me as hoofs of the horses have stirred.
They spurn disappointment and trample despair
And drown with the drumbeats the challenge of care.
With scarlet and silk for their banners above
They are swifter than fortune and sweeter than love.
