More playful than a frolic boy,
      More watchful than a sentinel,
    By day and night your constant joy,
      To guard and please me well: 

    I clasp your head upon my breast—­
      And while you whine and lick my hand—­
    And thus our friendship is confessed
      And thus we understand!

    Ah, Blanco! did I worship God
      As truly as you worship me,
    Or follow where my master trod
      With your humility;

    Did I sit fondly at His feet,
      As you, dear Blanco, sit at mine,
    And watch him with a love as sweet,
      My life would grow divine!

J. G. HOLLAND.

* * * * *

THE BEGGAR AND HIS DOG.

    “Pay down three dollars for my hound! 
    May lightning strike me to the ground! 
    What mean the Messieurs of police? 
    And when and where shall this mockery cease?

    “I am a poor, old, sickly man,
    And earn a penny I no wise can;
    I have no money, I have no bread,
    And live upon hunger and want, instead.

    “Who pitied me, when I grew sick and poor,
    And neighbors turned me from their door? 
    And who, when I was left alone
    In God’s wide world, made my fortunes his own?

    “Who loved me, when I was weak and old? 
    And warmed me, when I was numb with cold? 
    And who, when I in poverty pined,
    Has shared my hunger and never whined?

    “Here is the noose, and here the stone,
    And there the water—­it must be done! 
    Come hither, poor Pomp, and look not on me,
    One kick—­it is over—­and thou art free!”

    As over his head he lifted the band,
    The fawning dog licked his master’s hand;
    Back in an instant the noose he drew,
    And round his own neck in a twinkling threw.

    The dog sprang after him into the deep,
    His howlings startled the sailors from sleep;
    Moaning and twitching he showed them the spot: 
    They found the beggar, but life was not!

    They laid him silently in the ground,
    His only mourner the whimpering hound
    Who stretched himself out on the grave and cried
    Like an orphan child—­and so he died.

Chamisso, tr. by C. T. BROOKS.

* * * * *

DON.

    This is Don, the dog of dogs, sir,
    Just as lions outrank frogs, sir,
    Just as the eagles are superior
    To buzzards and that tribe inferior.

    He’s a shepherd lad—­a beauty—­
    And to praise him seems a duty,
    But it puts my pen to shame, sir,
    When his virtues I would name, sir. 
    “Don! come here and bend your head now,
    Let us see your best well-bred bow!”
    Was there ever such a creature! 
    Common sense in every feature! 
    “Don! rise up and look around you!”
    Blessings on the day we found you.