The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.

Sheep, like people, are ungovernable when hungry.

'Tis Summer Time on Bredon,
And now the farmers swear:
The cattle rise and listen
In valleys far and near,
And blush at what they hear.But when the mists in autumn
On Bredon top are thick,
And happy hymns of farmers
Go up from fold and rick,
The cattle then are sick.

They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,
They cried so loud I could not sleep:
For fifty thousand shillings down
I would not sail again with sheep.

Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burden'd air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

There are wolves within, and there are sheep without.

Drovers were racing brokenly across the milling hogs like wind through grass until a whole echelon of them careering up the outer flank forsook the land and faired into space with torn cries. Now the entire herd had begun to wheel wider and faster along the bluff and the outermost ranks swung centrifugally over the escarpment row on row wailing and squealing and above this the howls and curses of the drovers that now upreared in the moil of flesh they tended and swept with dust had begun to assume satanic looks with their staves and wild eyes as if they were no true swineherds but disciples of darkness got among these charges to herd them to their doom.

The animals pale, the shine of the fur is lost, bleached are their living bones. About them watch as through a mist, the pious prosperous ghosts.

"...out from the door of the farmhouse came a long file of pigs, all walking on their hind legs...out came Napoleon himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to side, and with his dogs gambolling round him.

He carried a whip in his trotter.

There was a deadly silence. Amazed, terrified, huddling together, the animals watched the long line of pigs march slowly round the yard. It was as though the world had turned upside-down. Then there came a moment when the first shock had worn off and when, in spite of everything-in spite of their terror of the dogs, and of the habit, developed through long years, of never complaining, never criticising, no matter what happened-they might have uttered some word of protest. But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of-

"Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!"

It went on for five minutes without stopping. And by the time the sheep had quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse."

Sooth't were a pleasant life to lead,
With nothing in the world to do
But just to blow a shepherd's reed,
The silent season thro'
And just to drive a flock to feed,—
Sheep—quiet, fond and few!

The gatherd storme is rype; the bigge drops falle; The forswat meadowes smethe, and drenche the raine; The comyng ghastness do the cattle pall, And the full flockes are drivynge ore the plaine; Dashde from the cloudes the waters flott againe; The welkin opes; the yellow levynne flies; And the hot fierie smothe in the wide lowings dies.

Bad herdsmen waste the flocks which thou hast left behind.

[ The wolfe eats oft of the sheep that have been warn'd. ]

We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa—aa—aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!