Page images
PDF
EPUB

Deep the River was, and crusted

Thinly by a one night's frost;

But the nimble Hare hath trusted
To the ice, and safely crost;

She hath crost, and without heed

All are following at full speed,

When, lo! the ice, so thinly spread,

[blocks in formation]

and the Greyhound, DART, is over head!

Better fate have PRINCE and SWALLOW

See them cleaving to the sport!
MUSIC has no heart to follow,

Little MUSIC, she stops short.

She hath neither wish nor heart,

Hers is now another part :

A loving Creature she, and brave!

And fondly strives her struggling Friend to save.

From the brink her paws she stretches,

Very hands as you would say!

And afflicting moans she fetches,

[blocks in formation]

Makes efforts and complainings; nor gives o'er Until her Fellow sank, and re-appeared no more.

XIII.

TRIBUTE

TO THE MEMORY OF THE SAME DOG.

LIE here, without a record of thy worth,
Beneath a covering of the common earth!
It is not from unwillingness to praise,

Or want of love, that here no Stone we raise ;
More thou deserv'st; but this Man gives to Man,
Brother to Brother, this is all we can.

Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear Shall find thee through all changes of the year: This Oak points out thy grave; the silent Tree Will gladly stand a monument of thee.

I grieved for thee, and wished thy end were past; And willingly have laid thee here at last : For thou hadst lived, till every thing that cheers In thee had yielded to the weight of years;

Extreme old age had wasted thee away;

And left thee but a glimmering of the day;
Thy ears were deaf; and feeble were thy knees, -
I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze,

Too weak to stand against its sportive breath,
And ready for the gentlest stroke of death.

It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed;
Both Man and Woman wept when Thou wert dead;
Not only for a thousand thoughts that were,

Old household thoughts, in which thou hadst thy share;
But for some precious boons vouchsafed to thee,
Found scarcely any where in like degree!

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

Best gift of God in thee was most intense;
A chain of heart, a feeling of the mind,
A tender sympathy, which did thee bind
Not only to us Men, but to thy Kind:
Yea, for thy Fellow-brutes in thee we saw
The soul of Love, Love's intellectual law :
Hence, if we wept, it was not done in shame ;
Our tears from passion and from reason came,
And, therefore, shalt thou be an honoured name!

XIV.

In the School of

is a Tablet, on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the Names of the several Persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the Foundation of the School, with the Time at which they entered upon and quitted their Office. Opposite one of those Names the Author wrote the following Lines.

IF Nature, for a favourite Child
In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray,

Read o'er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears

In such diversity of hue

Its history of two hundred years.

-When through this little wreck of fame,

Cipher and syllable! thine eye

Has travelled down to Matthew's name,

Pause with no common sympathy.

And, if a sleeping tear should wake,
Then be it neither checked nor stayed:
For Matthew a request I make

Which for himself he had not made.

Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er,
Is silent as a standing pool;

Far from the chimney's merry roar,
And murmur of the village school.

The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs
Of one tired out with fun and madness;
The tears which came to Matthew's eyes
Were tears of light, the dew of gladness.

Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up –

He felt with spirit so profound.

Thou Soul of God's best earthly mould!

Thou happy Soul! and can it be

That these two words of glittering gold
Are all that must remain of thee?

« PreviousContinue »