It cocked his ears and his blood went drumming, For somewhere out by Ghost Heath Stubs Was a roving vixen wanting cubs. [Illustration: He saw the farms where the dogs were barking, Cold Crendon Court and Copsecote Larking.] THE ROVING Over the valley, floating faint On a warmth of windflaw came the taint, He cocked his ears, he upped his brush, And he went up wind like an April thrush. By the Roman Road to Braiches Ridge Where the fallen willow makes a bridge, Over the brook by White Hart's Thorn, To the acres thin with pricking corn. Over the sparse green hair of the wheat, By the Clench Brook Mill at Clench Brook Leat, Through Cowfoot Pastures to Nonely Stevens, And away to Poltrewood St. Jevons. Past Tott Hill Down all snaked with meuses, Past Clench St. Michael and Naunton Crucis, Past Howle's Oak Farm where the raving brain Of a dog who heard him foamed his chain, Then off, as the farmer's window opened, Past Stonepits Farm to Upton Hope End; Over short sweet grass and worn flint arrows, And the three dumb hows of Tencombe Barrows; And away and away with a rolling scramble, Through the blackthorn and up the bramble, With a nose for the smells the night wind carried, And his red fell clean for being married. For clicketting time and Ghost Heath Wood Had put the violet in his blood. [Illustration: A dog who heard him foamed his chain] At Tencombe Rings near the Manor Linney, His foot made the great black stallion whinny, And the stallion's whinny aroused the stable And the bloodhound bitches stretched their cable, And the clink of the bloodhound's chain aroused The sweet-breathed kye as they chewed and drowsed, And the stir of the cattle changed the dream Of the cat in the loft to tense green gleam. The red-wattled black cock hot from Spain Crowed from his perch for dawn again, His breast-pufft hens, one-legged on perch, Gurgled, beak-down, like men in church, They crooned in the dark, lifting one red eye In the raftered roost as the fox went by. By Tencombe Regis and Slaughters Court, Through the great grass square of Roman Fort, By Nun's Wood Yews and the Hungry Hill, And the Corpse Way Stones all standing still, By Seven Springs Mead to Deerlip Brook, And a lolloping leap to Water Hook. Then with eyes like sparks and his blood awoken Over the grass to Water's Oaken, And over the hedge and into ride In Ghost Heath Wood for his roving bride. Before the dawn he had loved and fed And found a kennel and gone to bed On a shelf of grass in a thick of gorse That would bleed a hound and blind a horse. There he slept in the mild west weather With his nose and brush well tucked together, He slept like a child, who sleeps yet hears With the self who needs neither eyes nor ears.