Classic Poem

Old Oscar, how feebly thou crawl'st to the door,
Thou who wert all beauty and vigour of yore;
How slow is thy stagger the sunshine to find,
And thy straw-sprinkled pallet—how crippled and blind!
But thy heart is still living—thou hearest my voice—
And thy faint-wagging tail says thou yet canst rejoice;
Ah! how different art thou from the Oscar of old,
The sleek and the gamesome, the swift and the bold!

At sunrise I wakened to hear thy proud bark,
With the coo of the house-dove, the lay of the lark;
And out to the green fields 'twas ours to repair,
When sunrise with glory empurpled the air,
And the streamlet flowed down in its gold to the sea,
And the night-dew like diamond sparks gleamed from the tree,
And the sky o'er the earth in such purity glowed,
As if angels, not men, on its surface abode!

How then thou wouldst gambol, and start from my feet,
To scare the wild birds from their sylvan retreat,
Or plunge in the smooth stream, and bring to my hand
The twig or the wild-flower I threw from the land;
On the moss-sprinkled stone if I sat for a space,
Thou wouldst crouch on the greensward, and gaze in my face,
Then in wantonness pluck up the blooms in thy teeth,
And toss them above thee, or tread them beneath.

Then I was a schoolboy all thoughtless and free,
And thou wert a whelp full of gambol and glee;
Now dim is thine eyeball, and grizzled thy hair,
And I am a man, and of grief have my share!
Thou bring'st to my mind all the pleasures of youth,
When hope was the mistress, not handmaid of truth,
When earth looked an Eden, when joy's sunny hours
Were cloudless, and every path glowing with flowers.

Now summer is waning; soon tempest and rain
Shall harbinger desolate winter again,
And thou, all unable its grip to withstand,
Shalt die when the snow-mantle garments the land:
Then thy grave shall be dug 'neath the old cherry-tree,
Which in spring-time will shed down its blossoms on thee;
And, when a few fast-fleeting seasons are o'er,
Thy faith and thy form shall be thought of no more!

Then all who caressed thee and loved shall be laid,
Life's pilgrimage o'er, in the tomb's dreary shade;
Other steps shall be heard on these floors, and the past
Be like yesterday's clouds from the memory cast.
Improvements will follow; old walls be thrown down,
Old landmarks removed, when old masters are gone;
And the gard'ner, when delving, will marvel to see
White bones, where once blossomed the old cherry-tree!