Boar

1561  while the lord of the land ranged left and right
1562  in pursuit of that pig which stampeded through the uplands,
1563  breaking his best hounds with its back-snapping bite
1564  when it stood embattled ... then bowmen would strike,
1565  goading it to gallop into open ground
1566  where the air was alive with the huntsmen's arrows.
1567  That boar made the best men flinch and bolt,
1568  till at last his legs were like lead beneath him,
1569  and he hobbled away to hunker in a hole
1570  by a stony rise at the side of a stream.
1571  With the bank at his back he scrapes and burrows,
1572  frothing and foaming foully at the mouth,
1573  whetting his white tusks. The hunters waited,
1574  irked by the effort of aiming from afar
1575  but daunted by the danger of daring to venture
1576      too near.
1577      So many men before
1578      had fallen prey. They feared
1579      that fierce and frenzied boar
1580      whose tusks could slash and tear.

1581  Till his lordship hacks up, urging on his horse,
1582  spots the swine at standstill encircled by men,
1583  then handsomely dismounts and unhands his horse,
1584  brandishes a bright sword and goes bounding onwards,
1585  wades through the water to where the beast waits.
1586  Aware that the man was wafting a weapon
1587  the hog's hairs stood on end, and its howling grunt
1588  made the fellows there fear for their master's fate.
1589  Then the boar burst forward, bounded at the lord,
1590  so that beast and hunter both went bundling
1591  into white water, and the swine came off worst,
1592  because the moment they clashed the man found his mark,
1593  knifing the boar's neck, nailing his prey,
1594  hammering it to the hilt, bursting the hog's heart.
1595  Screaming, it was swept downstream, almost slipping
1596      beneath.