While loving sympathy is cherished,
While gratitude is not quite perished;
While patient, hopeful, cheerful meeting
At our return is pleasant greeting;
So long my heart will feel a void—
Grieving, my mind will be employed—
When I, returning to my door,
Shall miss what I shall find no more.
When we, at last, shall pass away,
And see no more the light of day,
Will many hearts as vacant mourn—
As truly wish for our return?
Yet love that's true will ever know
The pain of parting. Better so!
"Better to love and lose" than cold,
And colder still, let hearts grow old.
So let the cynic snarl or smile,
And his great intellect beguile;
My little dog, so true to me,
Will dear to heart and memory be.
Henry Willett.
QUESTIONS
Is there not something in the pleading eye
Of the poor brute that suffers, which arraigns
The law that bids it suffer? Has it not
A claim for some remembrance in the book
That fills its pages with the idle words
Spoken of man? Or is it only clay,
Bleeding and aching in the potter's hand,
Yet all his own to treat it as he will,
And when he will to cast it at his feet,
Shattered, dishonored, lost for evermore?
My dog loves me, but could he look beyond
His earthly master, would his love extend
To Him who—hush! I will not doubt that He
Is better than our fears, and will not wrong
The least, the meanest of created things.