[Illustration: Hawking]

HAWKING.

The soaring hawk, from fist that flies,
Her falconer doth constrain
Sometimes to range the ground about
To find her out again;
And if by sight, or sound of bell,
His falcon he may see,
Wo ho! he cries, with cheerful voice--
The gladdest man is he.

HANDEFULL OF PLEASANT DELITES.


At an early hour this morning the Hall was in a bustle, preparing for
the sport of the day. I heard Master Simon whistling and singing under
my window at sunrise, as he was preparing the jesses for the hawk's
legs, and could distinguish now and then a stanza of one of his
favourite old ditties:

"In peascod time, when hound to horn
Gives note that buck be kill'd;
And little boy with pipe of corn
Is tending sheep a-field," etc.