Could now withdraw the fatal dart.

Mutes marching on, in solemn pace,
With gladden'd heart and sorrowing face,
Who, clad in black attire, for pay
Let out their sorrows by the day:
The nodding plumes and 'scutcheon'd hearse
Would make a pretty show in verse;
But 'tis enough, Sir Jeffery dead,
That his remains, enshrin'd in lead,
And, cloth'd in all their sad array,
To mingle with their native clay,
Were safe convey'd to that same bourne
From whence no travellers return.
—We must another track pursue,
Life's varying path we have in view,—
Our way Quæ Genus is with you!		}

CANTO V

AS our enlighten'd reason ranges
O'er man and all his various changes,
What sober thoughts the scenes supply,
To hamper our philosophy;
To make the expanding bosom swell
With the fine things the tongue can tell!
And it were well, that while we preach,
We practice, what we're fain to teach.
O, here might many a line be lent,
To teach the mind to learn content,
And with a manly spirit bear
The stroke of disappointing care;
Awake a just disdain to smile
On muckworm fortune base and vile,
Look on its threatnings to betray,
As darksome clouds that pass away,
And call on cheering hope to see
Some future, kind reality.
—All who Sir Jeffery knew could tell
Our Hero serv'd him passing well;
Nay to the care which he bestow'd
The Knight a lengthen'd period ow'd,
And such the thanks he oft avow'd.		}
Quæ Genus never lost his views
Of duty and its faithful dues;
His honour no one could suspect,
Nor did he mark with cold neglect
Those services which intervene
In a sick chamber's sickly scene:
His duty thought no office mean,		}
And to Sir Jeffery's closing sigh
All, all was warm fidelity.
Nay, thus the Knight would frequent own
A grateful sense of service done;
And oft, in words like these, he said,
That duty shall be well repaid.
"Quæ Genus, know me for your friend,
I to your welfare shall attend;
Your friend while I retain my breath,
And when that's gone, your friend in death."
That death he felt as a disaster,
For, to speak truth, he lov'd his master,
Nor did he doubt that a reward
Would prove that master's firm regard.

'Tis nature, in life's worst vexation,

To look at least for consolation;

And he, 'tis true, had turn'd his eye

To a consoling legacy,