divine
  Of Providence, beneficent and kind
  To all His creatures, for the brutes prescribes
  A ready remedy, and is Himself
  Their great physician.  Now grown stiff with age,
  And many a painful chase, the wise old hound
  Regardless of the frolic pack, attends
  His master’s side, or slumbers at his ease
  Beneath the bending shade; there many a ring
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  Runs o’er in dreams; now on the doubtful foil
  Puzzles perplexed, or doubles intricate
  Cautious unfolds, then winged with all his speed,
  Bounds o’er the lawn to seize his panting prey: 
  And in imperfect whimperings speaks his joy. 
     A different hound for every different chase
  Select with judgment; nor the timorous hare
  O’ermatched destroy, but leave that vile offence
  To the mean, murderous, coursing crew; intent
  On blood and spoil.  O blast their hopes, just Heaven!
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  And all their painful drudgeries repay
  With disappointment and severe remorse. 
  But husband thou thy pleasures, and give scope
  To all her subtle play:  by nature led
  A thousand shifts she tries; to unravel these
  The industrious beagle twists his waving tail,
  Through all her labyrinths pursues, and rings
  Her doleful knell.  See there with countenance blithe,
  And with a courtly grin, the fawning hound
  Salutes thee cowering, his wide-opening nose
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  Upward he curls, and his large sloe-black eyes
  Melt in soft blandishments, and humble joy;
  His glossy skin, or yellow-pied, or blue,
  In lights or shades by Nature’s pencil drawn,
  Reflects the various tints; his ears and legs
  Flecked here and there, in gay enamelled pride
  Rival the speckled pard; his rush-grown tail
  O’er his broad back bends in an ample arch;
  On shoulders clean, upright and firm he stands,
  His round cat foot, straight hams, and wide-spread thighs,
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  And his low-dropping chest, confess his speed,
  His strength, his wind, or on the steepy hill,
  Or far-extended plain; in every part
  So well proportioned, that the nicer skill
  Of Phidias himself can’t blame thy choice. 
  Of such compose thy pack.  But here a mean
  Observe, nor the large hound prefer, of size
  Gigantic; he in the thick-woven covert
  Painfully tugs, or in the thorny brake
  Torn and embarrassed bleeds:  but if too small,
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  The pigmy brood in every furrow swims;
  Moiled in the clogging clay, panting they lag
  Behind inglorious; or else shivering creep
  Benumbed and faint beneath the sheltering thorn. 
  For hounds of middle size, active and strong,
  Will better answer all thy various ends,
  And crown thy pleasing labours with success. 
     As some brave captain, curious and exact,
  By his fixed standard forms in equal ranks
  His gay battalion, as one man they move