POOR DOG TRAY Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead 245 Alfred, LorD TENNYSON. POOR DOG TRAY On the green banks of Shannon when Sheelah was nigh, No harp like my own could so cheerily play, When at last I was forced from my Sheelah to part, Poor dog! he was faithful and kind to be sure, When the road was so dark, and the night was so cold, Though my wallet was scant I remembered his case, 246 LOVE WILL FIND OUT THE WAY Where now shall I go, poor, forsaken, and blind? LOVE WILL FIND OUT THE WAY OVER the mountains And over the waves, Under the fountains And under the graves; Where there is no place For the glow-worm to lie, For receipt of a fly; When the midge dares not venture If Love come, he will enter And will find out the way. OLD ENGLISH. THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA'S HALLS THE harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed, THE PATRIOT Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled. So sleeps the pride of former days, And hearts, hat once beat high for praise, 247 - THOMAS MOORE. THE PATRIOT It was roses, roses, all the way, With myrtle mixed in my path like mad; The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, A year ago on this very day. The air broke into a mist with bells, The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries, But give me your sun from yonder skies!" Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun To give it my loving friends to keep! Naught man could do, have I left undone: There's nobody on the house-tops now At the Shambles' Gate, or, better yet, I go in the rain, and, more than needs, Thus I entered, and thus I go! In triumphs, people have dropped down dead, "Paid by the world, what dost thou owe Me?" God might question; now instead, 'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so. - ROBERT BROWNING. OLD SONG 'Tis a dull sight to see the year dying, When such a time cometh I do retire Into an old room beside a bright fire: And there I sit reading old things, Of knights and lorn damsels, while the wind sings - L'ENVOI I never look out nor attend to the blast; For all to be seen is the leaves falling fast; But close at the hearth like a cricket, sit I 249 Then the clouds part, swallows soaring between; L'ENVOI WHEN Earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it or two, lie down for an æon Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us to work anew! And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair; They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet hair; They shall find real saints to draw from and Paul; Magdalene, Peter, They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all! |