Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume V. Nature. 1904. | | | | III. The Seasons | | The Hunted Squirrel | | William Browne (c. 1590–c. 1645) |
| | From “Britannia’s Pastorals,” Bk. I. Song 5 |
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THEN as a nimble squirrel from the wood, | |
| Ranging the hedges for his filbert-food, | |
| Sits pertly on a bough his brown nuts cracking, | |
| And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking, | |
| Till with their crooks and bags a sort of boys, | 5 |
| To share with him, come with so great a noise | |
| That he is forced to leave a nut nigh broke, | |
| And for his life leap to a neighbor oak, | |
| Thence to a beech, thence to a row of ashes; | |
| Whilst through the quagmires and red water plashes | 10 |
| The boys run dabbling thorough thick and thin, | |
| One tears his hose, another breaks his shin, | |
| This, torn and tattered, hath with much ado | |
| Got by the briars; and that hath lost his shoe: | |
| This drops his band; that headlong falls for haste; | 15 |
| Another cries behind for being last: | |
| With sticks and stones, and many a sounding hollow, | |
| The little fool with no small sport they follow, | |
| Whilst he from tree to tree, from spray to spray, | |
| Gets to the wood, and hides him in his dray. | 20 | | |
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