How sweet is the horn that blows in the morn,
Young bucks a-hunting go;
How sweet is the horn that blows in the morn,
Young bucks a-hunting go,
You bucks a-hunting go;
All my fancy dwells upon Nancy,
While I sing Tally-ho!

The fox leaped over the hedges so high,
The hounds all after him go;
The fox leaped over the hedges so high,
The hounds all after him go,
The hounds all after him go;
All my fancy dwells upon Nancy,
While I sing Tally-ho!

How sweet is my home, my low, little cot,
Let my station be high or low;
How sweet is my home, my low, little cot,
Let my station be high or low,
Let my station be high or low;
All my fancy dwells upon Nancy,
While I sing Tally-ho!



abc | midi | pdf

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Source: Kidson F, 1891, Traditional Tunes, A Collection of Ballad Airs, Oxford, Taphouse and Son

Notes:
Kidson notes were as follows:

For the following very musical hunting song I am indebted to Mr Thomas Hewson, of Roundhay. It was, he informs me, commonly sung on the borders of Staffordshire, Cheshire, and Shropshire, between 1820 and 1840. The version of the song and air is here given as it was sung by a follower of the Cheshire hounds during that period.

Versions at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads are titled "Bucks a hunting go" (1 edition) and "When bucks a hunting go(!)" (7 editions). A Forth edition is:

Printer: Forth, W. (Bridlington)
Date: [s.a.]
Imprint: Forth, Printer, Bridlington
Illus. Ballads on sheet: 2
Copies: Firth b.25(229).

Randolph Caldecott's picture book The Fox Jumps Over the Parson's Gate (1883) is based on a variant of this song.

Roud: 217 (Search Roud index at VWML) Take Six
Laws:
Child: