[Illustration: There he slept in the mild west weather With his nose and brush well tucked together.] He slept while the pheasant cock untucked His head from his wing, flew down and kukked, While the drove of the starlings whirred and wheeled Out of the ash-trees into field. While with great black flags that flogged and paddled The rooks went out to the plough and straddled, Straddled wide on the moist red cheese Of the furrows driven at Uppat's Leas. Down in the village, men awoke, The chimneys breathed with a faint blue smoke, The fox slept on, though tweaks and twitches, Due to his dreams, ran down his flitches. [Illustration: The fox slept on, though tweaks and twitches] The cows were milked and the yards were sluict, And the cocks and hens let out of roost, Windows were opened, mats were beaten, All men's breakfasts were cooked and eaten, But out in the gorse on the grassy shelf, The sleeping fox looked after himself. Deep in his dream he heard the life Of the woodland seek for food or wife, The hop of a stoat, a buck that thumped, The squeal of a rat as a weasel jumped, The blackbird's chackering scattering crying, The rustling bents from the rabbits flying, Cows in a byre, and distant men, And Condicote church-clock striking ten. At eleven o'clock a boy went past, With a rough-haired terrier following fast. The boy's sweet whistle and dog's quick yap Woke the fox from out of his nap. [Illustration: The boy's sweet whistle and dog's quick yap Woke the fox from out of his nap.] SCENT He rose and stretched till the claws in his pads Stuck hornily out like long black gads, He listened a while, and his nose went round To catch the smell of the distant sound. The windward smells came free from taint They were rabbit, strongly, with lime-kiln, faint, A wild-duck, likely, at Sars Holt Pond, And sheep on the Sars Holt Down beyond. The lee-ward smells were much less certain For the Ghost Heath Hill was like a curtain, Yet vague, from the lee-ward, now and then, Came muffled sounds like the sound of men. He moved to his right to a clearer space, And all his soul came into his face, Into his eyes and into his nose, As over the hill a murmur rose. His ears were cocked and his keen nose flaired, He sneered with his lips till his teeth were bared, He trotted right and lifted a pad Trying to test what foes he had. SOUND