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POOR DOG TRAY

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

245

Alfred, LorD TENNYSON.

POOR DOG TRAY

On the green banks of Shannon when Sheelah was nigh,
No blithe Irish lad was so happy as I;

No harp like my own could so cheerily play,
And wherever I went was my poor dog Tray.

When at last I was forced from my Sheelah to part,
She said (while the sorrow was big at her heart),
Oh! remember your Sheelah when far, far away:
And be kind, my dear Pat, to our poor dog Tray.

Poor dog! he was faithful and kind to be sure,
And he constantly loved me although I was poor;
When the sour-looking folk sent me heartless away,
I had always a friend in my poor dog Tray.

When the road was so dark, and the night was so cold,
And Pat and his dog were grown weary and old,
How snugly we slept in my old coat of gray,
And he licked me for kindness-my old dog Tray.

Though my wallet was scant I remembered his case,
Nor refused my last crust to his pitiful face;
But he died at my feet on a cold winter day,
And I played a sad lament for my poor dog Tray.

246

LOVE WILL FIND OUT THE WAY

Where now shall I go, poor, forsaken, and blind?
Can I find one to guide me, so faithful and kind?
To my sweet native village, so far, far away,
I can never more return with my poor dog Tray.
THOMAS CAmpbell.

LOVE WILL FIND OUT THE WAY

OVER the mountains

And over the waves,

Under the fountains

And under the graves;
Under floods that are deepest,
Which Neptune obey,
Over rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way.

Where there is no place

For the glow-worm to lie,
Where there is no space

For receipt of a fly;

When the midge dares not venture
Lest herself fast she lay,

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,
So glory's thrill is o'er

And hearts, hat once beat high for praise,
Now feel ha pulse no more.

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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,
Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels

But give me your sun from yonder skies!"
They had answered, "And afterward, what else?"

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun

To give it my loving friends to keep!

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Naught man could do, have I left undone:
And you see the harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.

There's nobody on the house-tops now
Just a palsied few at th. windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,

At the Shambles' Gate, or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.

I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

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 winter winds set the yellow wood sighing:
Sighing, O sighing!

When such a time cometh I do retire

Into an old room beside a bright fire:
O, pile a bright fire!

And there I sit reading old things,

Of knights and lorn damsels, while the wind sings -
O, drearily sings!

L'ENVOI

I never look out nor attend to the blast;

For all to be seen is the leaves falling fast;
Falling, falling!

But close at the hearth like a cricket, sit I

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249

Then the clouds part, swallows soaring between;
The spring is alive, and the meadows are green!
I jump up like mad, break the old pipe in twain,
And away to the meadows, the meadows again.
EDWARD FITZGERALD.

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;

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Magdalene, Peter,

They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at

all!

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