Spencer Heath Archive

Item 584

Typed and carbon on small, folded paper, as were many of Heath’s poems to fit in a wallet.

No date

 

 

THE GREYHOUND IN THE HAYGROUND

 

Abroad I went on pleasure bent.

   It was a holiday.

For steed I found a speedy hound,

   A leaping hound of grey.

A saucy sweet sat in the seat

   The driver just behind —

The things she said they turned his head

   (He could not take it blind),

The driver’s ear he turned a-rear

To listen to the lass.

The driver’s eye he lifted high

And winked into the glass.

And so, alas, there came to pass

The tale o’er which we sigh

Of how a dame must take the blame

When fortunes go awry.

With leap and bound the coursing hound,

Askew and all astray,

Came quick to rest upon its breast

Within a field of hay.

 

Anew the “dog-in-manger” tale,

Again the bane of storied rib —

The Greyhound in the hayground, like

   The canine in the Christian crib.