Will Ogilvie
William Ogilvie was born at Holefield House, a property that his father leased from The Duke of Buccleuch. At the age of twenty he went out to Australia to "gain some colonial experince". As well as huntng and working it was in Australia that he had his first poems published. He returned to the UK in 1901 at the age of 32. Earning his living with his pen he hunted as often as possible. In 1905 he went out to America where he lectured at Iowa State College. He remained there for nearly three years. 1908 he returned to marry the daughter of the Master of the Jedforest.
Will Ogilvie continued to earn his living by his pen, writing many verses for Punch. During the first war he volunteered as a remount officer and spent time in Devon.
He made an immense contribution to the store of British Sporting Verse and was a sad loss to the art when he died in 1963.
His son George T.A. Ogilvie wrote his biography
Balladist of Borders and Bush ISBN 0 952 4634 07 which includes a selction of his verse albeit little or no sporting verse. Click here to buy this book
Their white and their scarlet are
folded away,
The hoofs of their horses are dumb on the hill;
In vain do we look for our comrades to-day,
Yet we know that in spirit they ride with us still.
Not the faintest low whimper that
sounds in the thorn
But those keen ones will hear as they heard it of old;
Not a far-away holloa or blast of the horn
But be loud to the men who lie under the mould.
Can they sleep, can they sleep when
the wind hurries by
Through the woodlands of France with a rustle of leaves?
In the dark and the silence content can they lie
When the stubbles of Flanders are shorn of their sheaves?
Not the long leagues between, not the
seas that divide,
Will prevent them from hearing the thunder of horse,
The 'Tally-ho back!' of a Whip in the ride,
Or the glad 'Gone away!' from the end of the gorse.
As we cram our hats for the cream of
the vale,
By the ghosts of old camrades the pace will be set,
And the brave ones who broke for us rasper and rail
Will be riding the grassland in front of us yet.
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 planted 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 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
Riv«er,
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!
He asks no favour from the Field, no
forward place demands
Save what he claims by fearless heart and light and dainty hands;
No man need make a way for him at ditch or gap or gate,
He rides on level terms with all, if not at equal weight
His eyes are somewhat dimmer than
they were in days of yore,
A blind fence flow might trap him where it never trapped before;
But when the rails stand clean and high, the walls stand big and
bare,
There's no man rides so boldly as there's no man rides so
fair.
There is no other in the Field so
truly loved as he;
We better like to see him out than any younger three;
And yet one horseman day by day rides jealous at his rein
Old Time that smarts beneath the whip of fifty years'
disdain.
He crowds him at his fences, for he
envies his renown;
Some day he'll Cross him at a leap and bring a good man down,
And Time will take a long revenge for years of laughing scorn,
And fold the faded scarlet that was ne'er more nobly worn.
Here's luck! Oh! good, grey
sportsman! May Time be long defied
By careful seat and Cunning hand and health and heart to ride,
And when that direful day be come that surely shall befall,
We'll know you still unbeaten, save by Time that beats us
all!
The rain-sodden grass in the ditches
is dying, The berries are red to the crest of the thorn;
Coronet-deep where the beech leaves are lying The hunters stand tense
to the twang of the horn;
Where rides are re-filled with the green of the mosses, All
foam-flecked and fretful their long line is strung,
You can see the white gleam as a starred forehead tosses, You can
hear the low chink as a bit-bar is flung.
The world's full of music. Hounds
rustle the rover Through brushwood and fern to a glad 'Gone
away!'
With a 'Come along, Pilot!' - one spur-touch and over -The huntsman
is clear on his galloping grey;
Before him the pack's running straight on the stubble
-'Toot-root-too-too-too-oot' - 'Tow-row~ow-ow-ow!'
The leaders are clambering up through the double And glittering away
on the brown of the plough.
The front rank, hands down, have the
big fence's measure; The faint hearts are craning to left and to
right;
The Master goes through with a crash on The Treasure, The grey takes
the lot like a gull in his flight.
There's a brown crumpled up, lying still as a dead one; There's a
roan mare refusing, as stubborn as sin,
While the breaker flogs up on a green underbred one And smashes the
far-away rail with a grin.
The chase carries on over hilltop and
hollow, The life of Old England, the pluck and the fun;
And who would ask more than a stiff line to follow With hounds
running hard in the Opening Run?
If I were of the gods that rule
The game of Fox and Hound
There is a thing I'd do at Yule
Whenever it came around.
I would provide as Christmas Box
For every sportsman's child
A very special Christmas Fox
With manners specially mild
From coverg he should boldly
burst
Ans stay so long in view
That each could say, 'I saw him first
I saw him before you!'
And he should choose a careful
line
Avoiding wire and walls
That little folk of eight or nine
Should have but com'fy falls
And he should set a gentle pace
Towarsd the distant whin,
That every child might keep his place
The cheery hunt within;
That every boy on holiday
And girl from lessons freed
Might see as much as grown-ups may
When foxes run at speed
And when he'd gone a mile or two
The hounds should catch him fair,
And Michael, Madge and Montague
And all the rest be there.
And there should be no jealous
lads
Nor tearful lasses found,
For he'd have brushes, masks and pads
Sufficient to go round!
Will Ogilvie
Foxhound Puppies
Great big lolloping lovable
things!
Rolling and tumbling on every lawn,
Tearing at slippers and bones and wings-
Wonderful loot from the ash-heap drawn:
Foxhound puppies
Contented puppies
Dipping your ears in the dews of dawn!
Lapping your porridge at farm-house
doors,
Cracking a biscuit, robbing a nest
Printing your tracks upon kitchen floors,
Dodging a broom when the cooks protest;
Foxhound puppies,
Delinquent puppies,
Cursed for a moment and then caressed!
Wandering out where the spaniels
walk,
Following slow when the guns go by,
Streaking for home when the twelve-bores talk,
Clumsy and puzzled and suddenly shy;
Foxhound puppies
Bewildered puppies
Lone and unwanted and wondering why!
Never mind puppies, your day will
come;
By distant coverts your kingdoms wait,
When the spaniels doze and the guns are dumb
And hoofs are loud by the bridle gate;
Foxhound puppies,
Yet scarcely puppies,
Raised as you are to a hound's estate.
Lost will your lolloping ways be
then,
Your timid glance and your shrinking pose,
As you shoulder the gorse in glade and glen,
Lifting the line that your tongues disclose;
Foxhound puppies,
No longer puppies,
But trusted names that the huntsman knows!
W H Ogilvie