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Her dead
lady's joy and comfort,
Who departed this life
The
last day of March, 1727:
To the great joy of Bryan
That his antagonist is gone.
And is poor Tiger
laid at last so low?
O day of sorrow! -Day of dismal
woe!
Bloodhounds, or spaniels, lap-dogs, 'tis all
one,
When Death once whistles -snap! -away they're
gone.
See how she lies, and hangs her lifeless ears,
Bathed in her mournful lady's tears!
Dumb is her
throat, and wagless is her tail,
Doomed to the grave,
to Death's eternal jail!
In a few days this lovely
creature must
First turn to clay, and then be changed
to dust.
That mouth which used its lady's mouth to
lick
Must yield its jaw-bones to the worms to pick.
That mouth which used the partridge-wing to eat
Must
give its palate to the worms to eat.
Methinks I
see her now in Charon's boat
Bark at the Stygian fish
which round it float;
While Cerberus, alarmed to hear
the sound,
Makes Hell's wide concave bellow all
around.
She sees him not, but hears him through the
dark,
And valiantly returns him bark for bark.
But
now she trembles -though a ghost, she dreads
To see a
dog with three large yawning heads.
Spare her, you
hell-hounds, case your frightful paws,
And let poor
Tiger 'scape your furious jaws.
Let her go safe to
the Elysian plains,
Where Hylax barks among the
Mantuan swains;
There let her frisk about her
new-found love:
She loved a dog when she was here
above.
The Epitaph
Here lies beneath this
marble
An animal could bark, or warble:
Sometimes
a bitch, sometimes a bird,
Could eat a tart, or eat a
t -.
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