THE DYING HUNTER TO HIS DOG

  Lie down, lie down, my noble hound! 
    That joyful bark give o’er;
  It wakes the lonely echoes round,
    But rouses me no more. 
  Thy lifted ears, thy swelling chest,
    Thine eye so keenly bright,
  No longer kindle in my breast
    The thrill of fierce delight;
  As following thee, on foaming steed,
  My eager soul outstripp’d thy speed.

  Lie down, lie down, my faithful hound! 
    And watch this night with me. 
  For thee again the horn shall sound,
    By mountain, stream, and tree;
  And thou, along the forest glade,
    Shall track the flying deer
  When, cold and silent, I am laid
    In chill oblivion here. 
  Another voice shall cheer thee on,
  And glory when the chase is won.

  Lie down, lie down, my gallant hound! 
    Thy master’s life is sped;
  And, couch’d upon the dewy ground,
    ’Tis thine to watch the dead. 
  But when the blush of early day
    Is kindling in the sky,
  Then speed thee, faithful friend, away,
    And to my Agnes hie;
  And guide her to this lonely spot,
  Though my closed eyes behold her not.

  Lie down, lie down, my trusty hound! 
    Death comes, and now we part. 
  In my dull ear strange murmurs sound—­
    More faintly throbs my heart;
  The many twinkling lights of Heaven
    Scarce glimmer in the blue—­
  Chill round me falls the breath of even,
    Cold on my brow the dew;
  Earth, stars, and heavens are lost to sight—­
  The chase is o’er!—­brave friend, good-night!

CHAPTER XI

THE CHARIVARI

  Our fate is seal’d!  ’Tis now in vain to sigh
    For home, or friends, or country left behind. 
  Come, dry those tears, and lift the downcast eye
    To the high heaven of hope, and be resign’d;
  Wisdom and time will justify the deed,
  The eye will cease to weep, the heart to bleed.

  Love’s thrilling sympathies, affections pure,
    All that endear’d and hallow’d your lost home,
  Shall on a broad foundation, firm and sure,
    Establish peace; the wilderness become,
  Dear as the distant land you fondly prize,
  Or dearer visions that in memory rise.

The moan of the wind tells of the coming rain that it bears upon its wings; the deep stillness of the woods, and the lengthened shadows they cast upon the stream, silently but surely foreshow the bursting of the thunder-cloud; and who that has lived for any time upon the coast, can mistake the language of the waves; that deep prophetic surging that ushers in the terrible gale?  So it is with the human heart—­it has its mysterious warnings, its fits of sunshine and shade, of storm and calm, now elevated with anticipations of joy, now depressed by dark presentiments of ill.