A Song for the Golden Hare by Irena Szirtes

Golden hares only occur on the island of Rathlin, off the North Coast of Ireland. They have blonde coats and bright blue eyes. The poem below is written from a lurcher’s point of view. Hare coursing, where the first dog to turn (not catch)  a Hare wins, is still legal in Ireland. Lurchers in the UK retain the instinct, and can take part in simulated coursing with a lure.

A Song for the Golden Hare.

Come, dream of Rathlin’s golden hare,

Of moonlight made, and seaweed air,

Stitched by soundless grace and guile,

Fashioned only on that Isle.

 

Dream of Rathlin’s golden hare, feet

Soft as clover; from his lair, he

Scans horizons with an eye

Blue as tumbled skeins of sky.

 

Pelt of moon-gold wraps him round;

At dawn he sears the salt-specked ground,

Leaping, sweeping past the lake,

Scatt’ring  moonbeams in his wake.

 

You think, quite delicate he seems,

Yet he is not the stuff of dreams –

Wiry, wild, strong-legged is he,

Scorns the gale from Rathlin’s sea.

 

How salt-air-sifted is his home:

He flattens, safe in lairs dry-blown;

Sphagnum moss, with blue speedwell,

Purple orchids, asphodel,

 

Garlic, iris, daffodil,

Vetch and cranesbill ever fill

His eye, as blue as bottle glass,

While white-tailed eagles pause,  then pass.

 

Oh, how we long to pit our hearts

Against his cunning,  and outsmart

This moon-birthed creature, harvest gold,

And course him through the Rathlin cold!

 

And though he’d run as if he’s prey,

There’d be no catching -  not that day –

Spellbound, we’d refuse to take

A hare with moonbeams in his wake.

 

We dream of Rathlin’s golden hare,

Of moonlight made, and seaweed air;

Stitched by soundless grace and guile,

Fashioned only on that Isle.