In a vision a Sportsman forlorn
I beheld, in an isle of the West,
And his purple and linen were torn,
And he wailed, as he beat on his breast,—
“My people are men dispossessed,
They have vanished, and nobody cares,—
They have passed to the place of their rest,
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!
“Oh, why was a gentleman born
With a title, a name, and a crest,
Where the Rabbit is treated with scorn,
And the Hare is accounted a pest,
By the lumbering farmer repressed,
With his dogs, and his guns, and his snares?
But my fathers have ended their quest,
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!
“Ah, woe for the clover and corn
That the Rabbit was wont to infest!
Ah, woe for my youth in its morn,
When the farmer obeyed my behest!
Happy days! like a wandering guest
Ye have fled, ye are sped unawares;
But my fathers are now with the blest,
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!”
ENVOY.
Prince, mourn for a nation oppressed,
And absorbed in her stocks and her shares,
And bereaved of her bravest and best—
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!