Voices for the Speechless eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 254 pages of information about Voices for the Speechless.

Voices for the Speechless eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 254 pages of information about Voices for the Speechless.

    Then some, who through the garden pass,
    When we too, like thyself, are clay,
    Shall see thy grave upon the grass,
    And stop before the stone, and say:—­

People who lived here long ago Did by this stone, it seems, intend To name for future times to know The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

    [1] Sunt lacrimae rerum.

* * * * *

ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE OLD SPANIEL.

      Poor old friend, how earnestly
    Would I have pleaded for thee! thou hadst been
    Still the companion of my boyish sports;
    And as I roamed o’er Avon’s woody cliffs,
    From many a day-dream has thy short, quick bark
    Recalled my wandering soul.  I have beguiled
    Often the melancholy hours at school,
    Soured by some little tyrant, with the thought
    Of distant home, and I remembered then
    Thy faithful fondness; for not mean the joy,
    Returning at the happy holidays,
    I felt from thy dumb welcome.  Pensively
    Sometimes have I remarked thy slow decay,
    Feeling myself changed too, and musing much
    On many a sad vicissitude of life. 
    Ah, poor companion! when thou followedst last
    Thy master’s parting footsteps to the gate
    Which closed forever on him, thou didst lose
    Thy truest friend, and none was left to plead
    For the old age of brute fidelity. 
    But fare thee well!  Mine is no narrow creed;
    And He who gave thee being did not frame
    The mystery of life to be the sport
    Of merciless man.  There is another world
    For all that live and move—­a better one! 
    Where the proud bipeds, who would fain confine
    Infinite Goodness to the little bounds
    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 Burdett-Coutts 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 LITTLE DOG, who followed the remains of his beloved master to the churchyard, in the year 1858, and became a constant visitor to the grave, refusing to be separated from the spot until he died in the year 1872.

* * * * *

FROM AN INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG.

    When some proud son of man returns to earth,
    Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
    The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,
    And storied urns record who rests below;
    When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
    Not what he was, but what

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Voices for the Speechless from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.