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