Page:The American fugitive in Europe.djvu/159

Rh When all is done, upon the tomb is seen

Not what he was, but what he should have been.

But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,

The first to welcome, foremost to defend,

Whose honest heart is still his master's own,

Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,

Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth,

Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth;

While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,

And claims himself a sole, exclusive heaven.

O, man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,

Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power,

Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,

Degraded mass of animated dust;

Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,

Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!

By nature vile, ennobled but by name,

Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.

Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,

Pass on—it honors none you wish to mourn:

To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;

I never knew but one,—and here he lies."

By a will which his lordship executed in 1811, he directed that his own body should be buried in a vault in the garden, near his faithful dog. This feeling of affection to his dumb and faithful follower, commendable in itself, seems here to have been carried beyond the bounds of reason and propriety.

In another part of the grounds we saw the oak-tree planted by the poet himself. It has now attained a goodly size, considering the growth of the oak, and bids fair to become a lasting memento to the noble bard, and to be a shrine to which thousands of pilgrims will resort