Poetry: The Battered Brigade

In honor of the new foxhunting book club (or reading group) and National Poetry Month in April, I thought I'd post a poem here.

The Battered Brigade by Will Ogilvie

The mark of a stake in the shoulder,

The brand of a wall on the knee,
Are scars to the careless beholder
And blemishes. So it may be ;
But every such blemish endorses
The pluck of a steed unafraid,
And the heart of a lover of horses
Goes out to the Battered Brigade.

Their knocks have been gathered in duty,
Their scars in the front of the fray;
It isn't your cleanest-legged beauty
That's first at the end of the day.
When five foot of timber before us
Has half of the pretty ones stayed,
If you want to catch up to the chorus
Come on with the Battered Brigade!

Turned out in the finest of fettle
'Tis sometimes the soundest that fails
And would rather hear hoofs on the metal
Than follow the rattle of rails;
But out on the grass with hounds racing
And fences as big as they're made
The cream of the gay steeple-chasing
Is left to the Battered Brigade.

Their line is the line of the foxes,
Their pace is the pace of the pack,
Though to-morrow they stand in their boxes
As stiff as the props of a stack;
And I 'll lay you my cheque at the banker's
They're forward next week undismayed.
Good luck to the blemished front-rankers!
Hats off to the Battered Brigade!


Read more about Will Ogilvie at Wikipedia.

Reading list

Foxhunting is an old sport and the literature is huge.  Here is a small sample.

Fiction books that have been recommended:
1960, A Long Way to Go by Marigold Armitage
1932, A Hunting We Will Go by Geoffrey Brooke
1996, Riding Shotgun by Rita Mae Brown
2000, Outfoxed by Rita Mae Brown
1932, Point to Point (also called Conversation Piece) by M. J. Farrell (Molly Keane)
1990, There Goes Charlie by Anne Fleming
1972, A Portion for Foxes by Jane McIvaine McClary
2010, The Kill by Jan Neuharth (part of a series: The Hunt, The Chase, The Kill)
1949, Red Coats Galloping by John Welcome
1953, Mr. Merston’s Hounds by John Welcome

Short stories that have been recommended:
1947, The Millbeck Hounds by Gordon Grand
1935, The Silver Horn by Gordon Grand

Biographies and memoirs that have been recommended:
1981, Memoirs by Duke of Beaufort
1997, Never Outfoxed by Benjamin Hardaway
2002, My Privileged Life with the Scarteen Hounds by Thady Ryan
1928, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon
2005, Fox in the Cupboard by Jane Shilling
1965, The Yellow Earl by Douglas Southerland
1992, Ronnie Wallace by Robin Rhoderick-Jones

Nonfiction books that have been recommended:
1956, Red Foxes of Michigan by David A Arnold
1937, Hunting by Ear by D. W. E. Brock
1962, Riding to Hounds in America by William P. Wadsworth
1984, Diary of a Fox-Hunting Man by Carroll, Terence
1985, Foxhunting in North America by Alexander Mackay-Smith
1970, American Foxhunting: An Anthology by Alexander Mackay-Smith
2006, Foxhunting: How to Watch and Listen by Hugh J. Robards
1928, Hounds and Hunting Through the Ages by Joseph B. Thomas
1781, Thoughts on Hunting by Peter Beckford