Volume Ii Part 5 (2/2)

V

The dog was of novel breed, The Shannon retriever, untried: His master, an old Irish lord, In an oaken armchair snored At midnight, whisky beside.

VI

Perched up a desolate tower, Where the black storm-wind was a whip To set it nigh spinning, these two Were alone, like the last of a crew, Outworn in a wave-beaten s.h.i.+p.

VII

The dog lifted muzzle, and sniffed; He quitted his couch on the rug, Nose to floor, nose aloft; whined, barked; And, finding the signals unmarked, Caught a hand in a death-grapple tug.

VIII

He pulled till his master jumped For fury of wrath, and laid on With the length of a tough knotted staff, Fit to drive the life flying like chaff, And leave a sheer carcase anon.

IX

That done, he sat, panted, and cursed The vile cross of this brute: nevermore Would he house it to rear such a cur!

The dog dragged his legs, pained to stir, Eyed his master, dropped, barked at the door.

X

Then his master raised head too, and sniffed: It struck him the dog had a sense That honoured both dam and sire.

You have guessed how the tower was afire.

The Shannon retriever dates thence.

XI

I mused: saw the pup ease his heart Of his instinct for chasing, and sink Overwrought by excitement so new: A scene that for Koby to view Was the seizure of nerves in a link.

XII

And part sympathetic, and part Imitatively, raged my poor brute; And I, not thinking of ill, Doing eviller: nerves are still Our savage too quick at the root.

XIII

They spring us: I proved it, albeit I played executioner then For discipline, justice, the like.

Yon stick I had handy to strike Should have warned of the tyrant in men.

XIV

You read in your History books, How the Prince in his youth had a mind For governing gently his land.

Ah, the use of that weapon at hand, When the temper is other than kind!

XV

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