"Buy him, hey? Abner, trust me, I

Have not the thought of gain in view; Bayard's best days we've seen go by;

He shall be cheap enough to you."

The wages paid, the horse brought out,
The hour of separation come,
The farmer turned his chair about :

O Victory! from that stock of laurels
You keep so snug for camps and thrones,
Spare us one twig from all their quarrels,
For Abner and the Widow Jones.

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.

INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF
A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG.
HEN some proud son of man returns
to earth,

“Good fellow, take him—take him home. W

"You're welcome, Abner, to the beast,

For you've a faithful servant been; They'll thrive, I doubt not in the least,

Who know what work and service mean."

The maids at parting, one and all,

From different windows different tones, Bade him farewell with many a bawl, And sent their love to Mary Jones.

He waved his hat and turned away,

When loud the cry of children rose: "Abner, good-bye!" They stopt their play. "There goes poor Bayard! there he goes!"

of woe,

Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor's art exhausts the
pomp
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 on earth:

While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
O 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.

NEWSTEAD ABBEY, November 30, 1808.

LORD BYRON.

Abner & Bayard.

"Come on "We shant be there to night

Hacker

DR

RAW

BETSEY AND I ARE OUT.

FROM FARM BALLADS.

the up papers, lawyer, and make The first thing I remember whereon we dis'em good and stout,

agreed

For things at home are crossways, and Bet- Was something concerning heaven-a differ

sey and I are out:

We who have worked together so long as man and wife

ence in our creed :

We arg'ed the thing at breakfast, we arg'ed the thing at tea;

Must pull in single harness for the rest of our And the more we arg'ed the question, the nat'ral life. more we didn't agree.

"What is the matter?" say you. it's hard to tell

I swan,

And the next that I remember was when we lost a cow;

Most of the years behind us we've passed by She had kicked the bucket for certain: the very well; question was only "How?"

I have no other woman, she has no other I held my own opinion, and Betsey another

man

Only we've lived together as long as we ever

can.

had;

And when we were done a-talkin', we both of us was mad.

So I have talked with Betsey, and Betsey has And the next that I remember, it started in talked with me, a joke;

And so we've agreed together that we can't But full for a week it lasted, and neither of us spoke.

never agree;

Not that we've catched each other in any And the next was when I scolded because terrible crime: she broke a bowl,

We've been a-gathering this for years, a lit- And she said I was mean and stingy and tle at a time. hadn't any soul.

our cup;

There was a stock of temper we both had And so that bowl kept pourin' dissensions in for a start, Although we never suspected 'twould take And so that blamed cow-critter was always us two apart; a-comin' up;

I had my various failings, bred in the flesh And so that heaven we arg'ed no nearer to us and bone, got,

And Betsey, like all good women, had a tem- But it gave us a taste of somethin' a thousand times as hot.

per of her own.

And so the thing kept workin', and all the | And I have always determined, and never failed to say,

seltsame way

Always somethin' to arg'e, and somethin' That Betsey should never want a home if I

And there has been days together and many Safe in the hands of good men, and easy to a weary week—

get at:

We was both of us cross and spunky, and Put in another clause there, and give her half both too proud to speak;

And I have been thinkin' and thinkin', the whole of the winter and fall,

If I can't live kind with a woman, why, then, I won't at all.

of that.

Yes, I see you smile, sir, at my givin' her so

much;

Yes, divorce is cheap, sir, but I take no stock in such ;

And so I have talked with Betsey, and Bet- True and fair I married her when she was sey has talked with me, blithe and young,

And we have agreed together that we can't And Betsey was al'ays good to me, exceptin'

Write on the paper, lawyer-the very first And all of them was flustered and fairly paragraph

taken down,

Of all the farm and livestock that she shall And I for a time was counted the luckiest

But women are skeery critters unless they She nursed me true and tender, and stuck to

have a home;

me day and night.

And if ever a house was tidy, and ever a kitchen clean,

Don't cut down your figures; make it an X or a V,

Her house and kitchen was tidy as any I For that 'ere written agreement was just the

And kiss the child that was left to us, and No, for I was laborin' under a heavy load; out in the world I'll go.

If we loved each other the better because we
quarrelled here.
WILL CARLETON.

HOW BETSEY AND I MADE UP.

GT

No, for I was travellin' an entirely different road;

For I was a-tracin' over the path of our lives ag'in,

And seein' where we missed the way, and where we might have been.

And many a corner we'd turned that just to a quarrel led,

When I ought to 've held my temper and driven straight ahead;

And the more I thought it over, the more these memories came,

And the more I struck the opinion that I was the most to blame.

And things I had long forgotten kept risin' in my mind

Of little matters betwixt us where Betsey was good and kind;

IVE us your hand, Mr. Lawyer! How And these things flashed all through me, as do you do to-day? you know things sometimes will

You drew up that paper: I s'pose you want When a feller's alone in the darkness and

your pay.

everything is still.