TO A FAITHFUL DOG.
Poor Tyne! no verse of mine has ever sung
The praise of one more faithful than thou wert,
For warm affection formed a major part
Of thy canine existence, now, alas!
Cut short by sad and cruel accident.
We cannot choose but mourn thee, good old dog,
Who for a period of thirteen years
Guarded the family hearth and claimed a share
Of warm affection in its daily life,
Watching through tender, melancholy eyes,
Each loved one forming its component parts.
Ready to follow, sport, caress or play,
If but a kind word led the cue or way,
Parisien emigré of sixty-seven,
Reserved for kinder, more congenial fate
Than thy unhappy brethren of the siege;
Perchance with instinct keen thou did'st rejoice
To leave thy native land, o'ercharged with strife,
And on a foreign shore tell out thy life.
Thy soft, thick, creamy coat, expressive tail,
Deep, lustrous, loving eyes, short bark and wail;
Thy wild delight at prospect of a walk,
Glad boundings over green sward fresh and free,
Thy look of conscious guilt when wrong was done,
And patient waiting at thy master's side,
For well-selected morsel of each meal;
Thy pleadings, far more eloquent than words
Of mine could ever chronicle, thy sweet
Low whinings of inquiry or desire,
All will be long remembered, watcher true,
Good, old, affectionate, responsive Tyne!
FLOWERS.
Is there a heart so sere as not to feel
Pleasures innumerable o'er it stead,
In sweet surroundings of earth's lovely flowers,
Which cheer and elevate man's saddest hours.
Sweet messages from heaven they convey,
Through perfumed breath they sing their God-taught-lay,
Root firmly bedded in the active sod,
And eye turned upward to their Father God.
Pure gems of earth are beauteous to behold,
Set in the royalty of burnished gold;
But what is their dead beauty, to the glow
Of living, loving glory which flowers show?
Kind angel messengers to earth they seem,
Suggestive of hopes radiant, evergreen,
And of a future blossoming above,
In an eternal home of blissful love.