will ogilvie
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.
Readers’ Contest: Most Literate Foxhunter!
George Whyte-Melville (1821 - 1878)I’ve already confessed to you that George Whyte-Melville and William Henry Ogilvie are my favorite sporting poets. In their works are stitched the insistent rhythms of the galloping horse crossing open country. What follows is an ode to Whyte-Melville written by Ogilvie himself.
In this tribute appear numerous lines, phrases and references cleverly taken from many of Whyte-Melville’s poems. Whoever can extract the greatest number of Whyte-Melville lines and phrases in this poem and identify the Whyte-Melville poems from which they are taken will be named Foxhunting Life’s Most Literate Foxhunter of 2012! To submit your entry, click here.
Whyte-Melville by William Henry Ogilvie
With lightest of hands on the bridle, with lightest of hearts in the dance,
To the gods of Adventure and Laughter he quaffed the red wine of Romance,
Then wistfully turning the goblet he spilled the last drops at our feet,
And left us his tales to remember and left us his songs to repeat.
