When the last fence looms up, I am ready <br />And I hope when the rails of it crack <br />There'll be nothing in front but the Master, <br />The huntsman, the fox, and the pack; <br />And I hope when fate bids me go under <br />In this last of my manifold spills, <br />That we're riding the line of a hill fox <br />With half a mile start to his hills. <br />I hope that last fence is a stiff one; <br />I hope, for the sake of our name, <br />They may say, ' If the task was beyond them <br />They both of them went at it game! ' <br />And when the white girths flash above me, <br />And darkness comes down on the field, <br />Let them carry me home on a hurdle <br />As the Spartan went home on his shield. <br />And when I am out of the running <br />Let the good men go on with the pack; <br />I would not one comrade should falter, <br />I would not one friend should turn back; <br />And whether it be on the grass-land, <br />The hill-side, the heath or the loam, <br />Let the gallant ones keep going for'ard- <br />The slow ones can carry me home. <br />Let them bury me down in the churchyard, <br />But lay my good horse where he fell; <br />When the ditches are blind in the autumn <br />Some friend may remember and tell, <br />While under the thong of the west wind <br />The day-nettle trembles and stirs: <br />'Twas from here that a horseman undaunted <br />Went Home in his boots and his spurs.'<br /><br />William Henry Ogilvie<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-last-fence/
