The vixen made for Deadman's Flow
Where not a mare but mine could go;
And three hounds only splashed across
The quaking hags of mile-wide moss—
Only three of the dead-beat pack
Scrambled out by Lone Maid's Slack:
Bolter, Tough, and Ne'er-Die-Nell;
But as they broke across the fell
The tongue they gave was good to hear,
Lively music clean and clear,
Such as only light-coats make,
Hot-trod through the girth-deep brake.

The vixen, draggled and nigh-spent,
Twisted through the rimy bent
Towards the Christhope Crags. I thought—
Every earth stopped, winded, caught—
She's a mask and brush! When white
A squall of snow swept all from sight,
And hoodman-blind Lightfoot and I
Battled with the roaring sky.

When southerly the snow had swept,
Light broke as the vixen crept
Slinking up the stony brae.
On a jutting scar she lay,
Panting, lathered, while she eyed
The hounds that took the stiff brae-side
With yelping music, mad to kill.

Then vixen, hounds, and craggy hill
Were smothered in a blinding swirl;
And when it passed there stood a girl
Where the vixen late had lain,
Smiling down as I drew rein
Baffled, and the hounds dead-beat,
Fawning at the young girl's feet,
Whimpered, cowed, where her red hair,
Streaming to her ankles bare,
Turned as white among the heather
As the vixen's brush's feather.

Flinching on my flinching mare,
I watched her gaping and astare
As she smiled with red lips wide—
White fangs curving either side
Of her lolling tongue. … My thrapple
Felt fear's fang: I strove, agrapple,
Reeling … and again blind snow
Closed like night. …
No man may know
How Lightfoot won through Deadman's Flow,
And naught I knew till in the glow
Of home's wide door my wife's kind face
Smiled welcome, and for me the chase—
The last chase ended. Though the pack
Through the blizzard struggled back,
Gone were Bolter, Tough, and Nell,
Where, the vixen's self can tell!
Long we sought them high and low
By Christhope Crag and Deadman's Flow,
By slack and syke and hag, and found
Never bone nor hair of hound.