beasts,
  And stained the woodland green with purple dye,
  New and unpolished was the huntsman’s art;
  No stated rule, his wanton will his guide.
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  With clubs and stones, rude implements of war,
  He armed his savage bands, a multitude
  Untrained; of twining osiers formed, they pitch
  Their artless toils, then range the desert hills,
  And scour the plains below; the trembling herd
  Start at the unusual sound, and clamorous shout
  Unheard before; surprised alas! to find
  Man now their foe, whom erst they deemed their lord,
  But mild and gentle, and by whom as yet
  Secure they grazed.  Death stretches o’er the plain
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  Wide-wasting, and grim slaughter red with blood: 
  Urged on by hunger keen, they wound, they kill,
  Their rage licentious knows no bound; at last
  Incumbered with their spoils, joyful they bear
  Upon their shoulders broad, the bleeding prey. 
  Part on their altars smokes a sacrifice
  To that all-gracious Power, whose bounteous hand
  Supports his wide creation; what remains
  On living coals they broil, inelegant
  Of taste, nor skilled as yet in nicer arts
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  Of pampered luxury.  Devotion pure,
  And strong necessity, thus first began
  The chase of beasts:  though bloody was the deed,
  Yet without guilt.  For the green herb alone
  Unequal to sustain man’s labouring race,
  Now every moving thing that lived on earth
  Was granted him for food.  So just is Heaven,
  To give us in proportion to our wants. 
     Or chance or industry in after-times
  Some few improvements made, but short as yet
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  Of due perfection.  In this isle remote
  Our painted ancestors were slow to learn,
  To arms devote, of the politer arts
  Nor skilled nor studious; till from Neustria’s[3] coasts
  Victorious William, to more decent rules
  Subdued our Saxon fathers, taught to speak
  The proper dialect, with horn and voice
  To cheer the busy hound, whose well-known cry
  His listening peers approve with joint acclaim. 
  From him successive huntsmen learned to join
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  In bloody social leagues, the multitude
  Dispersed, to size, to sort their various tribes,
  To rear, feed, hunt, and discipline the pack. 
     Hail, happy Britain! highly-favoured isle,
  And Heaven’s peculiar care!  To thee ’tis given
  To train the sprightly steed, more fleet than those
  Begot by winds, or the celestial breed
  That bore the great Pelides through the press
  Of heroes armed, and broke their crowded ranks;
  Which proudly neighing, with the sun begins
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  Cheerful his course; and ere his beams decline,
  Has measured half thy surface unfatigued. 
  In thee alone, fair land of liberty! 
  Is bred the perfect hound, in scent and speed
  As yet unrivalled, while in other climes