In sooth he was a peerless hound, But now no Gelert could be found, And all the chace rode on. And now, as o'er the rocks and dells, That day Llewelyn little loved Unpleased Llewelyn homeward hied; When near the portal seat, His truant Gelert he espied Bounding his lord to greet. But when he gained the castle door, The hound all o'er was smeared with gore, Llewelyn gazed with fierce surprise; Onward in haste Llewelyn passed, Fresh blood-gouts shocked his view. O'erturned his infant's bed he found, He called his child-no voice replied- "Hell-hound! my boy's by thee devoured!" The frantic father cried; And to the hilt his vengeful sword His suppliant looks as prone he fell Aroused by Gelert's dying yell Some slumberer wakened nigh: What words the parent's joy could tell To hear his infant's cry! Concealed beneath a tumbled heap His hurried search had missed : All glowing from his rosy sleep The cherub boy he kissed. Nor scathe had he, nor harm, nor dread: Lay a gaunt wolf, all torn and dead, Tremendous still in death. "The Emigrant's Grave" always seemed to me eminently pathetic, and, above all, eminently true. There can hardly be a country neighbourhood in England in which the recollection of some "poor exile of France," equally patient, equally cheerful, equally kind, may not still be found, softening national animosity, and if he were (as often chanced) of the priesthood, effacing the still deeper prejudice that teaches the followers of Luther to dread the members of the Church of Rome. THE EMIGRANT'S GRAVE. Why mourn ye? Why strew ye those flowerets around And is the poor exile at rest from his woe, No longer the sport of misfortune and chance? Mourn on, village mourners, my tears too shall flow, For the stranger we loved, the poor exile of France! Oh! kind was his nature, though bitter his fate, Ever joyless himself, in the joys of the plain, The foremost was he mirth and pleasure to raise ; How sad was his woe, yet how blithe was his strain, When he sang the glad song of more fortunate days! One pleasure he knew in his straw-cover'd shed, Which he shared with the poor,-the still poorer than he. And when round his death-bed profusely we cast Every gift, every solace our hamlet could bring, Poor exile, adieu! undisturb'd be thy sleep! From the feast, from the wake, from the village-green dance, How oft shall we wander at moonlight to weep O'er the stranger we loved, the poor exile of France! To the church-bidden bride shall thy memory impart This is a country picture; in my own childhood I knew many of the numerous colony which took refuge in London from the horrors of the First French Revolution. The lady at whose school I was educated, and he was so much the more efficient partner that it was his school rather than hers, had married a Frenchman, who had been secretary to the Comte de Moustiers, one of the last ambassadors, if not the very last, from Louis Seize to the Court of St. James's. Of course he knew many emigrants of the highest rank, and indeed of all ranks ; and being a lively, kind-hearted man, with a liberal hand, and a social temper, it was his delight to assemble as many as he could of his poor countrymen and countrywomen around his hospitable |