One thinks the fox hunt is enameled there
Climbing forever the reckless hill;
The antique horses are but miniature
And no throat tightens for the old halloo.
Pursuit by no convention is outweighed,
The chase remains; the fox has long since died.
Hurry of trees, hurrah! The hunter
Settles in the leaves’ myopic fringe;
Thinks only of decoy and denouement,
A punctuation is his single want.
Though his necessity is sunlight’s trip
No day ensues flamingo to the tip.
What had he come for, stealing through
The rocky landscape with his gun unhinged
For rabbit, fox, and caribou,
A risky spy for his candid prey?
You have seen him waiting by the waterfall
In snow, a murderer of fowl.
And what is white may soon be red. Is this,
I cried, a symptom of our peace?
Is this hallucination of the war,
First fathomed by recess of dangerous
Pursuit in woods, a mere hysteria?
My voice untrumpeted the hills
As distance doubled in the wind’s decrease.
Love was the fox. I named him at last.
Running the circuit of my own deceit,
Through grass I have seen him trembling there,
Myself too hazardous, my legs too fleet.
There is no exit from the hopeless wood
And here, the final word is said.
By such persuasion is the mind undone
That peace is but a further stimulant,
A fire follows and a sea pursues
And after that, there is no name for peace.
And happiness is a false prediction
Like love rehearsed in the imagination.
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