The hounds, you know them all by name. <br />You fostered them from purblind whelps <br />At their dam's teats, and you have come <br />To know the music of their yelps: <br /> <br />High-strung Anthee, the brindled bitch, <br />The blue-tick coated Philomel, <br />And freckled Chloe, who would fetch <br />A pretty price if you would sell— <br /> <br />All fleet of foot, and swift to scent, <br />Inexorable once on the track, <br />Like angry words you might have meant, <br />But do not mean, and can't take back. <br /> <br />There was a time when you would brag <br />How they would bay and rend apart <br />The hopeless belling from a stag. <br />You falter now for the foundered hart. <br /> <br />Desires you nursed of a winter night— <br />Did you know then why you bred them— <br />Whose needling milk-teeth used to bite <br />The master's hand that leashed and fed them?<br /><br />Alicia Elsbeth Stallings<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/actaeon/
