Is my benediction said
Therefore, and for ever.
And because he loves me so,
Better than his kind will do
Often, man or woman, —
Give I back more love again
Than dogs often take of men, —
Leaning from my Human.
Blessings on thee, dog of mine,
Pretty collars make thee fine,
Sugared milk make fat thee!
Pleasures wag on in thy tail —
Hands of gentle motions fail
Nevermore, to pat thee!
Downy pillow take thy head,
Silken coverlid bestead,
Sunshine help thy sleeping!
No fly’s buzzing wake thee up —
No man break thy purple cup,
Set for drinking deep in.
Whiskered cats arointed flee —
Sturdy stoppers keep from thee
Cologne distillations!
Nuts lie in thy path for stones,
And thy feast-day macaroons
Turn to daily rations!
Mock I thee, in wishing weal? —
Tears are in my eyes to feel
Thou art made so straitly,
Blessing needs must straiten too, —
Little canst thou joy or do,
Thou who lovest greatly.
Yet be blessed to the height
Of all good and all delight
Pervious to thy nature, —
Only loved beyond that line,
With a love that answers thine,
Loving fellow-creature!
Mrs. Browning.
ALICE BRAND
I
Merry it is in the good greenwood,
When the mavis and merle are singing,
When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry,
And the hunter’s horn is ringing.
’O Alice Brand, my native land
Is lost for love of you;
And we must hold by wood and wold,
As outlaws wont to do!
’O Alice, ’twas all for thy locks so bright,
And ’twas all for thine eyes so blue,
That on the night of our luckless flight,
Thy brother bold I slew.
’Now must I teach to hew the beech,
The hand that held the glaive,
For leaves to spread our lowly bed,
And stakes to fence our cave.
’And for vest of pall, thy fingers small,
That wont on harp to stray,
A cloak must shear from the slaughter’d deer,
To keep the cold away.’ —
– ’O Richard! if my brother died,
’Twas but a fatal chance:
For darkling was the battle tried,
And fortune sped the lance.
’If pall and vair no more I wear,
Nor thou the crimson sheen,
As warm, we’ll say, is the russet gray;
As gay the forest-green.
‘And, Richard, if our lot be hard,
And lost thy native land,
Still Alice has her own Richàrd,
And he his Alice Brand.’
II
’Tis merry, ’tis merry, in good greenwood,
So blithe Lady Alice is singing;
On the beech’s pride, and oak’s brown side,
Lord Richard’s axe is ringing.
Up spoke the moody Elfin King,
Who wonn’d within the hill, —