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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 he should have been:
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master's own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonoured falls, unnoticed all his worth,

Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth :
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power,
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!

Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit !

By nature vile, ennobled but by name,

Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on-it honours none you wish to mourn:
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise,
I never knew but one, and here he lies.

Newstead Abbey, Oct. 30, 1808.

STANZAS.

« Heu quantò minùs est cum reliquis versari quàm tut meminisse ! »

1.

AND thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft, and charms so rare.
Too soon returned to earth!

Though earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness of mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

2.

I will not ask where thou liest low,

Nor

gaze upon the spot ;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,

So I behold them not :

It is enough for me to prove

That what I loved and long must love,

Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell,
'Tis nothing that I loved so well.

3.

Yet did I love thee to the last

As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow :

And, what were worse, thou canst not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

4.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine :

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep

I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have passed away;
I might have watched through long decay.

5.

The flower in ripened bloom unmatched
Must fall the earliest prey;

Though by no hand untimely snatched,
The leaves must drop away :

And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it plucked to-day ;

Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair:

6.

I know not if I could have borne

To see thy beauties fade;

The night that followed such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade :

Thy day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last;
Extinguished, not decayed;

As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

7.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;

To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;

And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

8.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!

The all of thine that cannot die

Through dark and dread Eternity,

Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.

TO

I.

BRIGHT be the place of thy soul!
No lovelier spirit than thine
E'er burst from its mortal controul,
In the orbs of the blessed to shine.
On earth thou wert all but divine,
As thy soul shall immortally be;
And our sorrow may cease to repine,
When we know that thy God is with thee.

2.

Light be the turf of thy tomb!

May its verdure like emeralds be
There should not be the shadow of gloom
In aught that reminds us of thee.
Young flowers and an evergreen tree
May spring from the spot of thy rest:
But not cypress nor yew let us see;

For why should we mourn for the blest?

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