A Lancashire Hare Poem by Cicely Fox Smith

O brown are the moors in the grey morning lying
Where the west wind comes singing o'er wide sea and plain;
O blithe on the hills when the autumn is dying
The hound and the horn wake the echoes again.
Here's to the hills bleak and bare:
To the winds that give challenge to care!
Here's to the sound of a Lancashire hound,
And the speed of a Lancashire hare!

O hark, and O hark, to the sound of the hollo,
Afar on the hills, in the fall o' the year!
O hark, and O hark, to the hounds that we follow,
How their full-throated chorus swells tuneful and clear.
Through the bent and the heather they revel and rally, -
Their voices all chiming out gallant and gay
A quest by the brookside, a view in the valley,
Then over the hilltop and for'ard away!

0 gone are all burdens of sorrow and yearning,
0 fast fly the hours that were made for delight,
Till red in the West like a torch dimly burning,
The last gleam of day gives the hunter good-night.
Here's to the hills bleak and bare,
To the winds that give challenge to care!
Here's to the sound of a Lancashire hound
And the speed of a Lancashire hare!