Who mourns the soul of a hound when he dies
Who even knows that he’s gone,
The master, the huntsman, they miss him perhaps,
And the farm where his walking was done.
But when once again on the opening day
The seasons first music rings clear,
Which of us misses the voice that is gone,
Or spare him a sorrowful tear.
They try for us, cry for us, gallop and fly for us-
Gad how the beauties can move?
In the whole of the shires not a pack to touch ours,
But it’s hounds, not the hound, that we love.
There’s few of us see in the course of the day,
How Harmony worked out the line;
How Destiny’s Dabster takes after his dam,
Or the work of that new bitch, Divine.
Each has temperament, each has his tricks,
The joy of them few of us know;
Few of us worry, and few of us care-
We still have the pack when they go.
Only the master, who growls out to Tom,
In a voice gone surprisingly gruff-
”Sexton must go, Tom, he’s getting damn slow”,
God knows we shall miss him enough.
But if he goes lonely, unwept and unsung,
That hound forgotten too soon,
I like to think that the pack sing his dirge,
In the night when they sing to the moon.
Anon
