The Last Cock-Pheasant

Splendour, whom lately on your glowing flight         Athwart the chill and cheerless winter-skies     I marked and welcomed with a futile right,         And then a futile left, and strained my eyes     To see you so magnificently large,     Sinking to rest beyond the fir-wood's marge -     Not mine, not mine the fault: despise me not         In that I missed you; for the sun was down,     And the dim light was all against the shot;         And I had booked a bet of half-a-crown.     My deadly fire is apt to be upset     By many causes - always by a bet.     Or had I overdone it with the sloes,         Snared by their home-picked brand of ardent gin     Designed to warm a shivering sportsman's toes         And light a fire his reckless head within?     Or did my silly loader put me off     With aimless chatter in regard to golf?     You too, I think, displayed a lack of nerve;         You did not quite-now did you?-play the game;     For when you saw me you were seen to swerve,         Doubtless in order to disturb my aim.     No, no, you must not ask me to forgive     A swerve because you basely planned to live.     At any rate I missed you, and you went,         The last day's absolutely final bird,     Scathless, and left me very ill content;         And someone (was it I?) pronounced a word,     A word which rather forcible than nice is,     A little word which does not rhyme with Isis.     Farewell! I may behold you once again         When next November's gales have stripped the leaf.     Then, while your upward flight you grandly strain,         May I be there to add you to my sheaf;     And may they praise your tallness, saying "This     Was such a bird as men are proud to miss!"