The Hunted Squirrel

William Browne (c. 1590–c. 1645)

From “Britannia’s Pastorals,” Bk. I. Song 5

THEN as a nimble squirrel from the wood,

Ranging the hedges for his filbert-food,

Sits pertly on a bough his brown nuts cracking,

And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking,

Till with their crooks and bags a sort of boys,

To share with him, come with so great a noise

That he is forced to leave a nut nigh broke,

And for his life leap to a neighbor oak,

Thence to a beech, thence to a row of ashes;

Whilst through the quagmires and red water plashes

The boys run dabbling thorough thick and thin,

One tears his hose, another breaks his shin,

This, torn and tattered, hath with much ado

Got by the briars; and that hath lost his shoe:

This drops his band; that headlong falls for haste;

Another cries behind for being last:

With sticks and stones, and many a sounding hollow,

The little fool with no small sport they follow,

Whilst he from tree to tree, from spray to spray,

Gets to the wood, and hides him in his dray.