Four pipeclay cross-roads seem'd to lie

At once upon my breast.

XVI.

My brazen breastplate only lack'd

A little heap of salt,

To make me like a corpse full dress'd,

Preparing for the vault

To set up what the Poet calls

My everlasting halt.

XVII.

This funeral show inclined me quite

To peace :—and here I am!

Whilst better lions go to war,

Enjoying with the lamb

A lengthen'd life, that might have been

A Martial Epigram.

NE morn-it was the very morn
September's sportive month was born-

The hour, about the sunrise, early:

The sky grey, sober, still, and pearly,

With sundry orange streaks and tinges

Through daylight's door, at cracks and hinges;

The air calm, bracing, freshly cool,
As if just skimm'd from off a pool;

The scene, red, russet, yellow, leaden,

From stubble, fern, and leaves that deaden,

Save here and there a turnip patch,

Too verdant with the rest to match;
And far a-field a hazy figure,

Some roaming lover of the trigger.
Meanwhile the level light perchance
Pick'd out his barrel with a glance;
For all around a distant popping
Told birds were flying off or dropping.
Such was the morn-a morn right fair
To seek for covey or for hare—

When, lo! too far from human feet
For even Ranger's boldest beat,

A Dog, as in some doggish trouble,

Came cant'ring through the crispy stubble,

With dappled head in lowly droop,

But not the scientific stoop ;

And flagging, dull, desponding ears,
As if they had been soaked in tears,
And not the beaded dew that hung
The filmy stalks and weeds among,

His pace, indeed, seemed not to know
An errand, why, or where to go,
To trot, to walk, or scamper swift--
In short, he seemed a dog adrift;

His very tail, a listless thing,
With just an accidental swing,

Like rudder to the ripple veering,
When nobody on board is steering.
So, dull and moody, cantered on
Our vagrant pointer, christen'd Don;

When, rising o'er a gentle slope,

That gave his view a better scope,

He spied, some dozen furrows distant, But in a spot as inconsistent,

A second dog across his track,

Without a master to his back;
As if for wages, workman-like,
The sporting breed had made a strike,
Resolved nor birds nor puss to seek,
Without another paunch a week!

This other was a truant curly,
But, for a spaniel, wondrous surly;
Instead of curvets gay and brisk,
He slouched along without a frisk,
With dogged air, as if he had

A good half mind to running mad;
Mayhap the shaking at his ear

Had been a quaver too severe ;
Mayhap the whip's "exclusive dealing
Had too much hurt e'en spaniel feeling,
Nor if he had been cut, 'twas plain
He did not mean to come again.