ot divine,
What prayer is mine?

KATHERINE LEE BATES.

A DOG'S EPITAPH

When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of wo,
And storied urns record who rests below;
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 in earth;
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole, exclusive Heaven.
Oh, 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.

LORD BYRON.

THE PASSING OF A DOG

This kindly friend of mine who's passed
Beyond the realm of day,
Beyond the realm of darkling night,
To unknown bourne away

Was one who deemed my humble home
A palace grand and fair;
Whose fullest joy it was to find
His comrade ever there.

Ah! He has gone from out my life
Like some dear dream I knew.
A man may own a hundred dogs,
But one he loves, and true.

ANONYMOUS.

MY DOG

The curate thinks you have no soul!
I know that he has none. But you,
Dear friend! whose solemn self-control
In our four-square, familiar pew,

Was pattern to my youth--whose bark
Called me in summer dawns to rove--
Have you gone down into the dark
Where none is welcome, none may love?

I will not think those good brown eyes
Have spent their light of truth so soon;
But in some canine Paradise
Your wraith, I know, rebukes the moon,

And quarters every plain and hill
Seeking its master. As for me,
This prayer at least the gods fulfill--
That when I pass the floor, and see

Old Charon by the Stygian coast