“Just is, O friend! thy caution, and address’d
(Replied the chief, to no unheedful breast:)
The wrongs and injuries of base mankind
Fresh to my sense, and always in my mind. 
The bravely-patient to no fortune yields: 
On rolling oceans, and in fighting fields,
Storms have I pass’d, and many a stern debate;
And now in humbler scene submit to fate. 
What cannot want?  The best she will expose,
And I am learn’d in all her train of woes;
She fills with navies, hosts, and loud alarms,
The sea, the land, and shakes the world with arms!”

Thus, near the gates conferring as they drew,
Argus, the dog, his ancient master knew: 
He not unconscious of the voice and tread,
Lifts to the sound his ear, and rears his head;
Bred by Ulysses, nourish’d at his board,
But, ah! not fated long to please his lord;
To him, his swiftness and his strength were vain;
The voice of glory call’d him o’er the main. 
Till then in every sylvan chase renown’d,
With Argus, Argus, rung the woods around;
With him the youth pursued the goat or fawn,
Or traced the mazy leveret o’er the lawn. 
Now left to man’s ingratitude he lay,
Unhoused, neglected in the public way;
And where on heaps the rich manure was spread,
Obscene with reptiles, took his sordid bed.

He knew his lord; he knew, and strove to meet;
In vain he strove to crawl and kiss his feet;
Yet (all he could) his tail, his tears, his eyes,
Salute his master, and confess his joys. 
Soft pity touch’d the mighty master’s soul;
Adown his cheek a tear unbidden stole,
Stole unperceived:  he turn’d his head and dried
The drop humane:  then thus impassion’d cried: 

“What noble beast in this abandon’d state
Lies here all helpless at Ulysses’ gate? 
His bulk and beauty speak no vulgar praise: 
If, as he seems, he was in better days,
Some care his age deserves; or was he prized
For worthless beauty? therefore now despised;
Such dogs and men there are, mere things of state;
And always cherish’d by their friends, the great.”

“Not Argus so, (Eumaeus thus rejoin’d,)
But served a master of a nobler kind,
Who, never, never shall behold him more! 
Long, long since perish’d on a distant shore! 
Oh had you seen him, vigorous, bold, and young,
Swift as a stag, and as a lion strong: 
Him no fell savage on the plain withstood,
None ’scaped him bosom’d in the gloomy wood;
His eye how piercing, and his scent how true,
To wind the vapour on the tainted dew! 
Such, when Ulysses left his natal coast: 
Now years unnerve him, and his lord is lost! 
The women keep the generous creature bare,
A sleek and idle race is all their care: 
The master gone, the servants what restrains? 
Or dwells humanity where riot reigns? 
Jove fix’d it certain, that whatever day
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.”