225 XYII. INCIDENT CHARACTERISTIC OF A FAVOURITE DOG. THIS Dog I knew well. It belonged to Mrs. Wordsworth's brother, Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, who then lived at Sock burn on the Tees, a beautiful retired situation where I used to visit him and his sisters before my marriage. My sister and I spent many months there after our return from Germany in 1799.] On his morning rounds the Master Four dogs, each pair of different breed, See a hare before him started! -Off they fly in earnest chase; Every dog is eager-hearted, Deep the river was, and crusted VOL. IV. ર She hath crost, and without heed All are following at full speed, When, lo! the ice, so thinly spread, Breaks-and the greyhound, DART, is over-head! Better fate have PRINCE and SWALLOW See them cleaving to the sport! MUSIC has no heart to follow, A loving creature she, and brave! And fondly strives her struggling friend to save. From the brink her paws she stretches, And afflicting moans she fetches, Makes efforts with complainings; nor gives o'er 1805. XVIII. TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF THE SAME DOG. LIE here, without a record of thy worth, More thou deserv'st; but this man gives to man, Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear We grieved for thee, and wished thy end were past; And willingly have laid thee here at last: For thou hadst lived till every thing that cheers It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed; 1805. XIX. FIDELITY. [THE young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles Gough, and had come early in the spring to Paterdale for the sake of angling. While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and perished. His body was discovered as is told in this poem. Walter Scott heard of the accident, and both he and I, without either of us knowing that the other had taken up the subject, each wrote a poem in admiration of the dog's fidelity. His contains a most beautiful stanza : "How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber, When the wind waved his garment how oft didst thou start." I will add that the sentiment in the last four lines of the last stanza in my verses was uttered by a shepherd with such exactness, that a traveller, who afterwards reported his account in print, was induced to question the man whether he had read them, which he had not.j A BARKING Sound the Shepherd hears, He halts and searches with his eyes Among the scattered rocks: And now at distance can discern A stirring in a brake of fern; The Dog is not of mountain breed; Nor is there any one in sight Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear; It was a cove, a huge recess, That keeps, till June, December's snow; A silent tarn* below! Far in the bosom of Helvellyn, From trace of human foot or hand. There sometimes doth a leaping fish Thither the rainbow comes-the cloud- Not free from boding thoughts, a while Nor far had gone before he found * Tarn is a small Mere or Lake, mostly high up in the mountains. |