Better fate have PRINCE and SWALLOW See them cleaving to the sport! 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 and complainings; nor gives o'er XIV. TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF THE SAME DOG. LIE here, without a record of thy worth, Or want of love, that here no Stone we raise; Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear 3 I 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 In thee had yielded to the weight of years; Extreme old age had wasted thee away, And left thee but a glimmering of the day; Thy ears were deaf, and feeble were thy knees, I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze, Too weak to stand against its sportive breath, And ready for the gentlest stroke of death. It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed; Old household thoughts, in which thou hadst thy share; In the School of XV. is a Tablet, on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the Names of the several Persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the Foundation of the School, with the Time at which they entered upon and quitted their Office. Opposite to one of those Names the Author wrote the following Lines. IF Nature, for a favourite Child, Read o'er these lines; and then review Its history of two hundred years. When through this little wreck of fame, Has travelled down to Matthew's name, And, if a sleeping tear should wake, Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er, The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup Thou soul of God's best earthly mould ! Thou happy Soul! and can it be That these two words of glittering gold Are all that must remain of thee? XVI. THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS. WE walked along, while bright and red And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said, "The will of God be done!" A village Schoolmaster was he, As blithe a man as you could see On a spring holiday. And on that morning, through the grass, And by the steaming rills, We travelled merrily, to pass A day among the hills. "Our work," said I, 66 was well begun; Then, from thy breast what thought, So sad a sigh has brought?” A second time did Matthew stop; Upon the eastern mountain-top, "Yon cloud with that long purple cleft A day like this which I have left "And just above yon slope of corn Such colours, and no other, Were in the sky, that April morn, Of this the very brother. "With rod and line I sued the sport Which that sweet season gave, And, coming to the church, stopped short Beside my daughter's grave. "Nine summers had she scarcely seen, The pride of all the vale; And then she sang; she would have been A very nightingale. - "Six feet in earth my Emma lay; For so it seemed, than till that day |