Hunter's Song

*** Revised Common Lectionary *** Lectionary Reading: Song of Solomon 2:8-13 CLASSIC POEM: Hunter’s Song Sir Walter Scott The toils are pitched, and the stakes are set, Ever sing merrily, merrily; The bows they bend, and the knives they whet, Hunters live so cheerily. It was a stag, a stag of ten, Bearing its branches sturdily; He came silently down the glen, Ever sing hardily, hardily. It was there he met with a wounded doe, She was bleeding deathfully; She warned him of the toils below, O so faithfully, faithfully! He had an eye, and he could heed, Ever sing so warily, warily; He had a foot, and he could speed— Hunters watch so narrowly. *** This poem is in the public domain, and may be read in a live-streamed worship service. CONTEMPORARY POEM: The Stags Kathleen Jamie SNIPPET: This is the multitude, the beasts you wanted to show me, drawing me upstream, all morning up through wind- scoured heather to the hillcrest. … [ READ THE FULL POEM ]