Once we went Gaily
Once we went gaily with never a care,
And the bigger the fences, the bolder we were;
Once the wild wind was our spur and our lash,
Once we would laugh at the splinter and crash
As the rails broke behind us, and thrill to the call
Of twelve foot of water or five foot of wall.
Once we could cope with the bucker's demands,
Once the hard puller came back to our hands;
Once the green four-year-old, fretting and free,
Flinging the foam in white flecks to his knee,
Bent to our bidding and held us our place,
O'er the stiffest of country whatever the pace.
To blood running hotly, to hearts beating strong,
Not the longest of days was a moment too long;
‘Till the evening drew over its mantle of stars
We would ride to the hoof-beat and rattle of bars.
There was song in the gale, there was kiss in the rain;
Ah! Once we went gaily-but never again!
For the harsh years have stolen that magical zest
When with confident courage we rode with the best.
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Pilot
Time was when the sportsman, with chivalrous care,
Would find a safe line for his follower fair,
And clearing the double stiff-planted and strong ,
Would turn in his saddle to cheer her along.
But now we've for pilot a damsel astride
On a stud-book and blood one, determined to ride,
With an eye for a country and vowed to the van;
And the slow ones may keep her in sight if they can.
As she lashes along in the wake of the pack
Not a man need expect her to pause or look back,
And the laggards who ride on her resolute trail
Need not wait for her cheer over bullfinch or rail.
To those who may follow not hers to give heed
So long as no rival shall challenge her lead!
If she levels a gap, if she smashes a bar,
They may take it or leave it, whoever they are.
As she rips at her fences our ears she may shock
With the' Damn you, come up !' of the steeplechase jock;
Should we choose her picked panel, avoiding a worse,
We may find ourselves warned with a suitable curse.
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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Foxhound Puppies
Great big lolloping lovable things!
Rolling and tumbling on every lawn,
Tearing at slippers and bones and wings-
Wonderful loot from the ash-heap drawn:
Foxhound puppies
Contented puppies
Dipping your ears in the dews of dawn!
Lapping your porridge at farm-house doors,
Cracking a biscuit, robbing a nest
Printing your tracks upon kitchen floors,
Dodging a broom when the cooks protest;
Foxhound puppies,
Delinquent puppies,
Cursed for a moment and then caressed!
Wandering out where the spaniels walk,
Following slow when the guns go by,
Streaking for home when the twelve-bores talk,
Clumsy and puzzled and suddenly shy;
Foxhound puppies
Bewildered puppies
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Battered Brigade
The mark of a stake in the shoulder,
The brand of a wall on the knee,
Are scars to the careless beholder
And blemishes. So it may be ;
But every such blemish endorses
The pluck of a steed unafraid,
And the heart of a lover of horses
Goes out to the Battered Brigade.
Their knocks have been gathered in duty,
Their scars in the front of the fray;
It isn't your cleanest-legged beauty
That's first at the end of the day.
When five foot of timber before us
Has half of the pretty ones stayed,
If you want to catch up to the chorus
Come on with the Battered Brigade!
Turned out in the finest of fettle
'Tis sometimes the soundest that fails
And would rather hear hoofs on the metal
Than follow the rattle of rails;
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Game of our Hearts
This is the game of our hearts!
Foot to the stirrup! Away!
Care with the night departs,
Joy comes in with the day.
A good horse tossing his rings,
A light rime decking the thorn:
And the heart of the horseman sings
For love of a hunting morn.
This is the game of our hearts!
Mottled flanks in the fern;
Rate where a rabbit starts,
Cheer to a waving stern;
Call that we rush to obey
From a Whip at his post outside:
Gone away! Gone aw-a-a-ay!
And we sit down to ride.
This is the game of our hearts!
Crash and rattle of rail;
Lean hounds driving like darts
Into the breast of the vale.
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Veteran
He asks no favour from the Field, no forward place demands
Save what he claims by fearless heart and light and dainty hands;
No man need make a way for him at ditch or gap or gate,
He rides on level terms with all, if not at equal weight
His eyes are somewhat dimmer than they were in days of yore,
A blind fence now might trap him where it never trapped before;
But when the rails stand clean and high, the walls stand big and bare,
There's no man rides so boldly as there's no man rides so fair.
There is no other in the Field so truly loved as he;
We better like to see him out than any younger three;
And yet one horseman day by day rides jealous at his rein
Old Time that smarts beneath the whip of fifty years' disdain.
He crowds him at his fences, for he envies his renown;
Some day he'll Cross him at a leap and bring a good man down,
And Time will take a long revenge for years of laughing scorn,
And fold the faded scarlet that was ne'er more nobly worn.
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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Comrades 0' Mine
If I call, will you hear me, O comrades of mine,
When the sky in the East holds the grey of the dawn,
When the soft wind is stirring the plumes of the pine
And the shadow goes gliding beneath like a fawn?
If I call, will you hear me, 0 long-ago friends,
As you pass to the stockyard with bridle on arm,
Where the song of the magpie to Heaven ascends
And the buddah-bush blooms with its delicate charm?
If I call, will you hear me? Heart calling to heart
Across the wide water, across the long years.
In the life that you live have I, too, not a part?
Do I share not its laughter, its hopes and its fears?
If my saddle hangs idle, if no more I bind
The spurs of adventure to gleam on the heel,
Along Memory's paths may I stray not and find
The beat of bare hoofs and the jingle of steel?
Where we rode shall I ride not? Through scrubs where we raced
With the rein lying loose as some favourite flew
Through the ragged grey stems, through the boughs interlaced
Have ye ridden one ride where I rode not with you?
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Australian
The skies that arched his land were blue,
His bush-born winds were warm and sweet,
And yet from earliest hours he knew
The tides of victory and defeat;
From fierce floods thundering at his birth,
From red droughts ravening while he played,
He learned to fear no foes on earth –
“The bravest thing God ever made!”
The bugles of the motherland
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Last Fence
When the last fence looms up, I am ready
And I hope when the rails of it crack
There'll be nothing in front but the Master,
The huntsman, the fox, and the pack;
And I hope when fate bids me go under
In this last of my manifold spills,
That we're riding the line of a hill fox
With half a mile start to his hills.
I hope that last fence is a stiff one;
I hope, for the sake of our name,
They may say, ' If the task was beyond them
They both of them went at it game! '
And when the white girths flash above me,
And darkness comes down on the field,
Let them carry me home on a hurdle
As the Spartan went home on his shield.
And when I am out of the running
Let the good men go on with the pack;
I would not one comrade should falter,
I would not one friend should turn back;
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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Witchery Knows!
Witchery knows what it means
When the oats and the barley, the wheat and the beans,
Have been built into stacks and the stubbles are bare;
When the woodlands are flaming in russet and rose,
When there's rime on the grass and a nip in the air,
Witchery knows!
Witchery knows very well
When the gorse-tops are shaking down there in the dell,
And a Whip like a statue waits under a tree,
That the moment has come to be up on her toes
And reaching her lean little head to her knee-
Witchery knows!
Witchery knows how to creep
When the banks are still blind and the ditches are deep,
When a double looms up scarce a cat could get through,
While his true tongue beyond it old Ruffian throws,
Little Witchery knows how to take it in two-
Witchery knows!
Witchery knows how to race
When the hard-riding leaders are cramming on pace
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poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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