Confinement

The people that once lived next door
Kept a great deerhound on a chain,
By night he had the dog-box floor
And sleeping he did not complain.
From box to house was thirty feet,
And three of these were his to walk,
Yet in the night he followed fleet
The pack that had the deer in baulk.
For when he woke he cried so keen
And cried and cried and cried day long.
It was a sorry thing and mean
To chain a dog so brave and strong.
He tracked again the warm deer trail
By lake and stream and forest way.
But they heard nothing in his wail,
It was a thing of every day.
And when those people sold their home
I hardly was so glad before.
I did not know that more would come
And chain their dog again next door.

—R.F.F.