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Saddle room songs and hunting ballads cover

Saddle room songs and hunting ballads

Chapter 13: A TOAST.
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About This Book

A collection of short poems and ballads celebrating fox hunting, racing, and stable life in the countryside. The verse alternates exuberant hunt choruses and breathless race scenes with quieter, nostalgic pieces about an empty loose-box, an old saddle being sold, and a cab horse's recollections. Multiple voices—riders, whippers-in, grooms, and onlookers—convey camaraderie, sport, and affection for horses using lively rhythms, onomatopoeic calls, and direct narrative detail. Overall the poems register the pleasures and rituals of country sport alongside wistful memory and affectionate portraiture of animals.

A TOAST.

Here’s to the galloping hunter,
Standing in stall or in box:
Here’s to the pack in the kennel,
And here’s to the little red fox:
Tally ho! Tally ho!
A health to each puppy and foal,
Hark gone away!
Drink while ye may,
To the ladies, the fox-hunt, the bowl.