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Patroclus" rests in grassy tomb, And "Peter" grows into his room.

For tho', 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 grey
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 thro' the dim Elysian bounds
Leads all his cry of little hounds.

John Halsham.

On the Collar of Mrs. Dingley's Lap-Dog

PRAY steal me not, I'm Mrs. Dingley's,

Whose Heart in this four-footed Thing lies.
Jonathan Swift.

Islet the Dachs

UR Islet out of Helgoland, dismissed

OUR

From his quaint tenement, quits hates and loves.

There lived with us a wagging humorist

In that hound's arch dwarf-legged on boxing-gloves.

George Meredith.

F

Geist's Grave

OUR years !—and didst thou stay above

FOUR

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,
Call'd 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?

That liquid, melancholy eye,

From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs

Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry,1

The sense of tears in mortal things—

That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled

By spirits gloriously gay,

And temper of heroic mould—

What, was four years their whole short day?

1 Sunt lacrimæ rerum.

Yes, only four !-and not the course
Of all the centuries yet to come,
And not the infinite resource

Of Nature, with her countless sum

Of figures, with her fulness vast
Of new creation evermore,
Can ever quite repeat the past,
Or just thy little self restore.

Stern law of every mortal lot!

Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear, And builds himself I know not what

Of second life I know not where.

But thou, when struck thine hour to go,
On us, who stood despondent by,
A meek last glance of love didst throw,
And humbly lay thee down to die.

Yet would we keep thee in our heart—
Would fix our favourite on the scene,
Nor let thee utterly depart

And be as if thou ne'er hadst been.

And so there rise these lines of verse
On lips that rarely form them now;
While to each other we rehearse :

Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou!

We stroke thy broad brown paws again,
We bid thee to thy vacant chair,
We greet thee by the window-pane,
We hear thy scuffle on the stair.

We see the flaps of thy large ears
Quick raised to ask which way we go ;
Crossing the frozen lake, appears

Thy small black figure on the snow!

Nor to us only art thou dear,

Who mourn thee in thine English home; Thou hast thine absent master's tear, Dropt by the far Australian foam.

Thy memory lasts both here and there,
And thou shalt live as long as we.
And after that-thou dost not care!
In us was all the world to thee.

Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame,
Even to a date beyond our own,
We strive to carry down thy name
By mounded turf and graven stone.

We lay thee, close within our reach,
Here, where the grass is smooth and warm,

Between the holly and the beech,

Where oft we watch'd thy couchant form,