POETRY.
' SIR BEDIVERE,' OUTWARD BOUND.
HE lay upon the deck amid the crowd, Sublime in beauty, more sublime in calm, And gazed upon the scene with tranquil eye.
Around him yelped and rushed the restless herd,—
The pug, contemptuous half, and half afraid, The Italian greyhound shivering in the cold, The terrier yapping at the passer's legs, And all their owners as confused as they,— And still he lay in careless majesty.
He had been bidden, "Lie there still, good dog,, And let your master order all besides."
His mighty paws were crossed upon the deck, His neck was as the strength of silent hills, His eyes were as the calm of sunlit snows (Brown eyes that twinkled with a happy smile),. And all the tide of seething human life Surged up on him, like breakers on a rock That rear and shriek and will not be at rest, Yet never touch its monumental calm. And he lay like a cliff that fronts the sun There in the cold grey fog and biting wind.
Yet not unmindful he of human woe.
A little child was sobbing in affright; "See doggie," said the mother, beating down The grief that choked her throat and filled her eyes',. See doggie, baby, doggie's not afraid, You must be good like doggie," and he turned His noble head, and licked the little hand, And let it pull the "tangles of his hair," And child and mother both were comforted.. Then dropped the great ship swift across the bar, And swifter rose the great clouds from the west, And moving mountains leaped on every side, And the dimmed stars went heaving up and down ; And still he lay in trustful majesty, As the ship sailed from Old World on to New.
So, as we journey to that other world, Though stars should fall and mountains be removed, Let be ; our Master orders there as here.
H, WATTS JONES.
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