Aroused by Gelert’s dying yell,
      Some slumberer wakened nigh: 
    What words the parent’s joy can tell
      To hear his infant cry! 
    Concealed beneath a mangled heap
      His hurried search had missed: 
    All glowing from his rosy sleep,
      His cherub boy he kissed.

    Nor scratch had he, nor harm, nor dread;
      But the same couch beneath
    Lay a great wolf, all torn and dead—­
      Tremendous still in death. 
    Ah, what was then Llewellyn’s pain! 
      For now the truth was clear;
    The gallant hound the wolf had slain
      To save Llewellyn’s heir.

    Vain, vain was all Llewellyn’s woe—­
      “Best of thy kind, adieu! 
    The frantic deed which laid thee low
      This heart shall ever rue.” 
    And now a gallant tomb they raise,
      With costly sculpture decked;
    And marbles, storied with his praise,
      Poor Gelert’s bones protect.

    Here never could the spearman pass,
      Or forester unmoved;
    Here oft the tear-besprinkled grass
      Llewellyn’s sorrow proved. 
    And here he hung his horn and spear;
      And oft, as evening fell,
    In fancy’s piercing sounds would hear
      Poor Gelert’s dying yell.

SPENSER.

* * * * *

LOOKING FOR PEARLS.

AN ORIENTAL LEGEND.

    The Master came one evening to the gate
    Of a far city; it was growing late,
    And sending his disciples to buy food,
    He wandered forth intent on doing good,
    As was his wont.  And in the market-place
    He saw a crowd, close gathered in one space,
    Gazing with eager eyes upon the ground. 
    Jesus drew nearer, and thereon he found
    A noisome creature, a bedraggled wreck,—­
    A dead dog with a halter round his neck. 
    And those who stood by mocked the object there,
    And one said scoffing, “It pollutes the air!”
    Another, jeering, asked, “How long to-night
    Shall such a miscreant cur offend our sight?”
    “Look at his torn hide,” sneered a Jewish wit,—­
    “You could not cut even a shoe from it,”
    And turned away.  “Behold his ears that bleed,”
    A fourth chimed in; “an unclean wretch indeed!”
    “He hath been hanged for thieving,” they all cried,
    And spurned the loathsome beast from side to side. 
    Then Jesus, standing by them in the street,
    Looked on the poor spent creature at his feet,
    And, bending o’er him, spake unto the men,
    “Pearls are not whiter than his teeth.” And then
    The people at each other gazed, asking,
    “Who is this stranger pitying the vile thing?”
    Then one exclaimed, with awe-abated breath,
    “This surely is the Man of Nazareth;
    This must be Jesus, for none else but he
    Something to praise in a dead dog could see!”
    And, being ashamed, each scoffer bowed his head,
    And from the sight of Jesus turned and fled.