What are you doing here, you cluster of mottled
beauty,
Far from the fields you love and the copses scented
sweet,
Treading the stones of London at the call of some
strange new duty.
You that should run with the beech-leaves rustling
over your feet ?
You that are free of the woodlands, what can you find
but scorning
For the long unplanted pavements and the tall
unbranching roofs?
You that have heard the south wind sing loud on a
hunting morning,
When lanes were flashing with scarlet and fields
were drumming with hoofs ?
If they find you a fox in Mayfair, will you show them
a right pack running,
With scorn of a Hyde Park holloa or a hat held up
in the Strand ?
If he lays you a line through Soho with a touch of
his country cunning,
Will you hold it along by the bun-shops till you
bring him at last to hand ?
If he leads you into the Gardens where the trees
stand tall and quiet,
Will you carry it on by the water as only a good
pack can ?
Will you tarry not for the children's call nor turn
aside to riot
Where sit by their sandless burrows the rabbits of
Peter Pan ?
If you pass the towering Needle when the shadows
of dusk are falling.
And gold on the magic water are the lights of the
little piers.
Will your heads go up for a moment when you hear
old Egypt calling.
Thrilling a distant ' For'ard on ! ' out of the dusk
of years ?
Will you throw your tongues of silver till the spires
on the churches quiver ?
Will you glitter beneath the arches till the road is
a cloud of white ?
Will you fling from the bank and follow if he crosses
London River,
To show that your fox is forward and show that
your hearts are right ?
Somewhere are friends that need you ; somewhere
are wet woods waiting ;
Somewhere are clean green pastures with a clean
cool wind above,
'Tis time to be footing the dance again to a tune of
your own creating,
Leading the men that love you over the vale you
love!
