My Last Terrier Our surest hope is in an hour destroyed, And love, best gift of Heaven, not long enjoyed. 1827 Her streaming eyes, wrung hands, and flowing hair; And her torn fan gives real signs of woe. Hence, Superstition! 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. Cease, Celia, cease; restrain thy flowing tears. He's dead. Oh! lay him gently in the ground! MY LAST TERRIER I MOURN "Patroclus," whilst I praise 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 Or deprecates offended Law; 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, Who whistles o'er the asphodel, And through the dim Elysian bounds. John Halsham [18 GEIST'S GRAVE FOUR years!--and didst thou stay above And all that life, and all that love, Only four years those winning ways, Called us to pet thee or to praise, Geist's Grave That loving heart, that patient soul, To run their course, and reach their goal That liquid, melancholy eye, From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled And temper of heroic mould What, was four years their whole short day? Yes, only four!--and not the course Of all the centuries yet to come, Of Nature, with her countless sum Of figures, with her fulness vast Stern law of every mortal lot! Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear, Of second life I know not where. But thou, when struck thine hour to go, On us, who stood despondent by, Yet would we keep thee in our heart- And be as if thou ne'er hadst been. 1829 And so there rise these lines of verse Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou! We stroke thy broad brown paws again, We see the flaps of thy large ears Nor to us only art thou dear, Who mourn thee in thine English home; Thy memory lasts both here and there, Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame, We lay thee, close within our reach, Between the holly and the beech, Where oft we watched thy couchant form, Asleep, yet lending half an ear To travelers on the Portsmouth road;— Laddie Then some, who through this garden pass, People who lived here long ago The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend. 1831 Matthew Arnold [1822-1888] LADDIE LOWLY the soul that waits At the white, celestial gates, A threshold soul to greet Beloved feet. Down the streets that are beams of sun Cherubim children run; They welcome it from the wall; Their voices call. But the Warder saith: "Nay, this Is the City of Holy Bliss. What claim canst thou make good "Joy," answereth it from eyes That are amber ecctasies, Listening, alert, elate, Before the gate. Oh, how the frolic feet "Nay, brother of the sod, What part hast thou in God? |