At His Own Little
Farm There Was Yet Another Plague In The Form Of An Old
Broken-Winged Gander, "The Pest And Tryant Of The Yard," Whose
Unpleasant Habit It Was To Go For The Beasts And Seize Them By
The Fetlocks.
The swine alone did not resent the attacks but
welcomed them, receiving the assaults as caresses, and
stretching themselves
Out and lying down and closing their
pigs' eyes, they would emit grunts of satisfaction, while the
triumphant bird, followed by the whole gabbling flock, would
trample on the heads of their prostrate foes.
"Autumn" opens bravely:
Again the year's decline, 'midst storms and floods,
The thund'ring chase, the yellow fading woods
Invite my song.
It contains two of the best things in the poem, the first in
the opening part, describing the swine in the acorn season, a
delightful picture which must be given in full: -
No more the fields with scattered grain supply
The restless tenants of the sty;
From oak to oak they run with eager haste,
And wrangling share the first delicious taste
Of fallen acorns; yet but thinly found
Till a strong gale has shook them to the ground.
It comes; and roaring woods obedient wave:
Their home well pleased the joint adventurers leave;
The trudging sow leads forth her numerous young,
Playful, and white, and clean, the briars among,
Till briars and thorns increasing fence them round,
Where last year's mould'ring leaves bestrew the ground,
And o'er their heads, loud lashed by furious squalls,
Bright from their cups the rattling treasure falls;
Hot thirsty food; whence doubly sweet and cool
The welcome margin of some rush-grown pool,
The wild duck's lonely haunt, whose jealous eye
Guards every point; who sits prepared to fly,
On the calm bosom of her little lake,
Too closely screened for ruffian winds to shake;
And as the bold intruders press around,
At once she starts and rises with a bound;
With bristles raised the sudden noise they hear,
And ludicrously wild and winged with fear,
The herd decamp with more than swinish speed,
And snorting dash through sedge and rush and reed;
Through tangled thickets headlong on they go,
Then stop and listen for their fancied foe;
The hindmost still the growing panic spreads,
Repeated fright the first alarm succeeds,
Till Folly's wages, wounds and thorns, they reap;
Yet glorying in their fortunate escape,
Their groundless terrors by degrees soon cease,
And Night's dark reign restores their peace.
For now the gale subsides, and from each bough
The roosting pheasant's short but frequent crow
Invites to rest, and huddling side by side
The herd in closest ambush seek to hide;
Seek some warm slope with shagged moss o'erspread,
Dried leaves their copious covering and their bed.
In vain may Giles, through gathering glooms that fall,
And solemn silence, urge his piercing call;
Whole days and nights they tarry 'midst their store,
Nor quit the woods till oaks can yield no more.
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