She hath crost, and without heed When, lo! the ice, so thinly spread, Breaks-and the greyhound, DART, is over-head! Better fate have PRINCE and SWALLOW See them cleaving to the sport! MUSIC has no heart to follow, A loving creature she, and brave! And fondly strives her struggling friend to save. From the brink her paws she stretches, And afflicting moans she fetches, Makes efforts with complainings; nor gives o'er 1805. XVIII. TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF THE SAME DOG. LIE here, without a record of thy worth, More thou deserv'st; but this man gives to man, Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear We grieved for thee, and wished thy end were past; And willingly have laid thee here at last: For thou hadst lived till every thing that cheers It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed; Old household thoughts, in which thou hadst thy share; For love, that comes wherever life and sense 1805. ΧΙΧ. FIDELITY. [THE young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles Gough, and had come early in the spring to Paterdale for the sake of angling. While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and perished. His body was discovered as is told in this poem. Walter Scott heard of the accident, and both he and I, without either of us knowing that the other had taken up the subject, each wrote a poem in admiration of the dog's fidelity. His contains a most beautiful stanza : "How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber, I will add that the sentiment in the last four lines of the last A BARKING Sound the Shepherd hears, He halts-and searches with his eyes Among the scattered rocks: And now at distance can discern The Dog is not of mountain breed; Nor is there any one in sight It was a cove, a huge recess, That keeps, till June, December's snow; A silent tarn* be'ow! Far in the bosom of Helvellyn, From trace of human foot or hand. There sometimes doth a leaping fish Thither the rainbow comes-the cloud- Not free from boding thoughts, a while Nor far had gone before he found * Tarn is a small Mere or Lake, mostly high up in the mountains, From those abrupt and perilous rocks He instantly recalled the name, And who he was, and whence he came; On which the Traveller passed this way. But hear a wonder, for whose sake A lasting monument of words This wonder merits well. The Dog, which still was hovering nigh, Repeating the same timid cry, This Dog, had been through three months' space A dweller in that savage place. Yes, proof was plain that, since the day When this ill-fated Traveller died, The Dog had watched about the spot, Or by his master's side: How nourished here through such long time 1805. |