Not free from boding thoughts awhile
The shepherd stood: then makes his way
Towards the dog, o'er rocks and stones,
As quickly as he may;
Nor far had gone before he found
A human figure on the ground;
The appall'd discoverer, with a sigh
Looks round to learn the history.
From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The man had fall'n, that place of fear!
At length upon the shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear:
He instantly recall'd the name,
And who he was, and whence he came;
Remember'd too the very day,
On which the traveller pass'd this way.
But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell!
A lasting monument of words
This wonder merits well.
The dog, which still was hovering nigh,
Repeating the same timid cry,
This dog had been, through three months' space,
A dweller in that savage place.
Yes, proof was plain, that since that day,
When this ill-fated traveller died,
The dog had watched about the spot,
Or by his master's side:
How nourish'd here through such long time,
He knows, who gave that love sublime;
And gave that strength of feeling, great,
Above all human estimate.
The melancholy circumstances connected with the death of Charles Gough have also been beautifully depicted by the powerful pen of Sir Walter Scott, who has paid a pleasing tribute to the "pilgrim of nature" in some highly pathetic stanzas, which, by the by, are rendered additionally interesting from the following anecdote connected with them:—"Our two charming poets, Walter Scott and Campbell, walking together" (says Ryan, in his Poetry and the Poets), "and speaking of this incident, each agreed, in the spirit of amicable rivalship, to make it the subject of a poem. Scott, on his way home, composed the following exquisite lines, which he sent the next day to Campbell, who returned them with this reply:—'I confess myself vanquished: if I were to live a thousand years, I could never write anything equal to this, on the same subject;' and he never attempted it."
I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn,
Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;
All was still—save by fits, when the eagle was yelling,
And, starting around me, the echoes replied.
On the right, Striding Edge round the Red Tarn was bending,
And Catchedecam its left verge was defending,
One huge nameless rock in front was impending,
When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer died.
Dark green was that spot, 'mid the brown mountain heather,
Where the pilgrim of nature lay stretched in decay,
Like the corpse of an outcast, abandoned to weather,
Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay:
Not yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,
For faithful in death, his mute favourite attended,
The much-loved remains of his master defended,
And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.
How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber—
When the wind waved his garments how oft didst thou start—
How many long days and long nights didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?—
And ah! was it meet that no requiem read o'er him;
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him;
And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him,
Unhonoured the pilgrim from life should depart?
When a prince to the fate of a peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;
With escutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,
And the pages stand mute by the canopied pall;
Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming,
In the proudly arched chapel the banners are beaming,
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.
But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,
To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb,
When, wildered, he drops from some rock high in stature,
And draws his last breath by the side of his dam:
And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,
Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying,
With but one faithful friend to witness thy dying,
In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedecam.