And all that life, and all that love, Only four years those winning ways, That loving heart, that patient soul, To run their course, and reach their goal, That liquid, melancholy eye, From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled And temper of heroic mould What, was four years their whole short day? Yes, only four! and not the course Of all the centuries to come, And not the infinite resource Of nature, with her countless sum Of figures, with her fulness vast 1 Sunt lacrimæ rerum. Stern law of every mortal lot! Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear, And builds himself I know not what Of second life I know not where. But thou, when struck thine hour to go, A meek last glance of love didst throw, Yet would we keep thee in our heart - And be as if thou ne'er hadst been. And so there rise these lines of verse We stroke thy broad, brown paws again, We e see the flaps of thy large ears Nor to us only art thou dear Who mourn thee in thine English home; Thou hast thine absent master's tear, Thy memory lasts both here and there, Yet fondly zealous for thy fame, We lay thee, close within our reach, Where oft we watched thy couchant form, Asleep, yet lending half an ear To travellers on the Portsmouth road · Then some, who through the garden pass, People who lived here long ago The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend. MATTHEW ARNOLD. ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE OLD SPANIEL. Poor old friend, how earnestly Would I have pleaded for thee! thou hadst been And as I roamed o'er Avon's woody cliffs, From many a day-dream has thy short, quick bark Often the melancholy hours at school, Soured by some little tyrant, with the thought I felt from thy dumb welcome. Pensively Ah, poor companion! when thou followedst last But fare thee well! Mine is no narrow creed; Of merciless man. There is another world Where the proud bipeds, who would fain confine Of their own charity, may envy thee. ROBERT SOUTHEY. EPITAPH IN GREY FRIARS' CHURCHYARD. The monument erected at Edinburgh to the memory of "Grey Friars' Bobby" by the Baroness BurdettCoutts has a Greek inscription by Professor Blackie. The translation is as follows: This monument was erected by a noble lady, THE BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS, to the memory of GREY FRIARS' BOBBY, a faithful and affectionate who followed the remains of his beloved master in the year 1858, and became a constant visitor to the grave, in the year 1872. FROM AN INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. When some proud son of man returns to earth, Not what he was, but what he should have been: Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone, |