A North Country Hound (Old Style) Poem by Cicely Fox Smith

Now hark, all good hunters, I'll sing you the praise
Of a brave hound and goodly, that's worth
As gallant a creature as God made for man
Since the hound and the horn on this old earth began.

He's strong and he's straight, lads, his tongue like a bell,
And the stout heart that's in him, lads, tongue cannot tell,
For to breast the steep hillsides where faint hearts must fail,
And to sweep the wide moors in the teeth of the gale.

Oh goodly to see him a-brushing the dews
With his ears fine and flowing, his deep drooping news;
Let him seek and he'll find, and he needs no halloo,
For he knows what he's hunting, lads, better than you.

Oh goodly to hear him, when, viewing her nigh,
He makes the moors ring with the depth of his cry!
Oh goodly to follow, with fortune for friend,
Till at last with ' Who-oop,' lads, the best run must end.

Such hounds do they breed in the brave North Countrie
(Where lasses be bonny, and men they be free);
And many a good hound in this land may be found,
But he's second to none, lads, the North-country hound!