Volume Iv Part 23 (1/2)

Unhappy Shock! Yet more unhappy fair, Doomed to survive thy joy and only care.

Thy wretched fingers now no more shall deck, And tie the favorite ribbon round his neck; No more thy hand shall smooth his glossy hair, And comb the wavings of his pendent ear.

Let cease thy flowing grief, forsaken maid!

All mortal pleasures in a moment fade: Our surest hope is in an hour destroyed, And love, best gift of Heaven, not long enjoyed.

Methinks I see her frantic with despair, Her streaming eyes, wrung hands, and flowing hair; Her Mechlin pinners, rent, the floor bestrow, And her torn fan gives real signs of woe.

Hence, Superst.i.tion! that tormenting guest, That haunts with fancied fears the coward breast; No dread events upon this fate attend, Stream eyes no more, no more thy tresses rend.

Though certain omens oft forewarn a state, And dying lions show the monarch's fate, Why should such fears bid Celia's sorrow rise?

For, when a lap-dog falls, no lover dies.

Cease, Celia, cease; restrain thy flowing tears.

Some warmer pa.s.sion will dispel thy cares.

In man you'll find a more substantial bliss, More grateful toying and a sweeter kiss.

He's dead. Oh! lay him gently in the ground!

And may his tomb be by this verse renowned: Here Shock, the pride of all his kind, is laid, Who fawned like man, but ne'er like man betrayed.

John Gay [1685-1732]

MY LAST TERRIER

I mourn ”Patroclus,” whilst I praise Young ”Peter” sleek before the fire, A proper dog, whose decent ways Renew the virtues of his sire; ”Patroclus” rests in gra.s.sy tomb, And ”Peter” grows into his room.

For though, when Time or Fates consign The terrier to his latest earth, Vowing no wastrel of the line Shall dim the memory of his worth, I meditate the silkier breeds, Yet still an Amurath succeeds:

Succeeds to bind the heart again To watchful eye and strenuous paw, To tail that gratulates amain Or deprecates offended Law; To bind, and break, when failing eye And palsied paw must say good-bye.

Ah, had the dog's appointed day But tallied with his master's span, Nor one swift decade turned to gray The busy muzzle's black and tan, To reprobate in idle men Their threescore empty years and ten!

Sure, somewhere o'er the Stygian strait ”Panurge” and ”Bito,” ”Tramp” and ”Mike,”

In couchant conclave watch the gate, Till comes the last successive tyke, Acknowledged with the countersign: ”Your master was a friend of mine.”

In dreams I see them spring to greet, With rapture more than tail can tell, Their master of the silent feet Who whistles o'er the asphodel, And through the dim Elysian bounds Leads all his cry of little hounds.

John Halsham [18--

GEIST'S GRAVE

Four years!--and didst thou stay above The ground, which hides thee now, but four?

And all that life, and all that love, Were crowded, Geist! into no more?

Only four years those winning ways, Which make me for thy presence yearn, Called us to pet thee or to praise, Dear little friend! at every turn?

That loving heart, that patient soul, Had they indeed no longer span, To run their course, and reach their goal And read their homily to man?