Or stars retire from the first blush of day, With thy far-echoing voice alarm thy pack, And rouse thy bold compeers. Then to the copse, Thick with entangling grass, or prickly furze, With silence lead thy many-colour’d hounds, In all their beauty’s pride. See! how they range Dispersed; how busily, this way and that, They cross, examining, with curious nose, Each likely haunt. Hark! on the drag I hear Their doubtful notes, preluding to a cry More nobly full, and swell’d with every mouth. As straggling armies, at the trumpet’s voice, Press to their standard; hither all repair, And hurry through the woods with hasty step, Rustling and full of hope; now, driven in heaps, They push, they strive, while from his kennel sneaks The conscious villain. See! he skulks along, Sleek, at the shepherd’s cost, and plump, with meals Purloin’d: so thrive the wicked here below. Though high his brush he bear, though, tipp’d with white, It gaily shine, yet ere the sun, declined, Recall the shades of night, the pamper’d rogue Shall rue his fate, reversed; and, at his heels, [Sidenote: BOOK III THE CHASE v. 62-84.] Behold the just avenger, swift to seize His forfeit head, and thirsting for his blood. Heavens! what melodious strains! how beat our hearts, Big with tumultuous joy! the loaded gales Breathe harmony; and, as the tempest drives, From wood to wood, through every dark recess, The forest thunders, and the mountains shake. The chorus swells; less various, and less sweet, The trilling notes, when, in those very groves, The feather’d choristers salute the spring, And every bush in concert joins: or, when The master’s hand, in modulated air, Bids the loud organ breathe, and all the powers Of musick, in one instrument combine An universal minstrelsy. And now In vain each earth he tries; the doors are barr’d, Impregnable; nor is the covert safe; He pants for purer air. Hark! what loud shouts Re-echo through the groves!--he breaks away! Shrill horns proclaim his flight. Each straggling hound Strains o’er the lawn, to reach the distant pack. ’Tis triumph all, and joy. Now, my brave youths, Now give a loose to the clean generous steed; [Sidenote: BOOK III THE CHASE v. 85-108.]