Classic Poem

" PAY down three dollars for my hound!
May lightning strike me to the ground!
What mean the Messieurs of police?
And when and where shall this mockery cease?

" I am a poor, old, sickly man,
And earn a penny I no wise can;
I have no money, I have no bread,
And live upon hunger and want, instead.

" Who pitied me, when I grew sick and poor,
And neighbors turned me from their door?
And who, when I was left alone
In God's wide world, made my fortunes his own?

" Who loved me, when I was weak and old?
And warmed me, when I was numb with cold?
And who, when I in poverty pined,
Has shared my hunger and never whined?

" Ah, well-a-day! poor beast, dear heart!
The fates have ordered that we should part;
Thou art old and sick, like thy master, now,
And I must drown thee, such thanks hast thou!

" Such thanks and such reward! in thee
How many a mortal's fate we see!
Oh, heaven! Full many a fight I've seen,
Yet never before a hangman been!

" Here is the noose, and here the stone,
And there the water — it must be done!
Come hither, poor Pomp, and look not on me,
One kick — it is over — and thou art free!"

As over his head he lifted the band,
The fawning dog licked his master's hand,
Back in an instant the noose he drew
And round his own neck in a twinkling threw,

And uttering, then, a dreadful curse,
He gathered his little remaining force,
And plunged in the waters; — a sullen roar —
A bubbling eddy — and all was o'er!

The dog sprang after him into the deep,
His howlings startled the sailors from sleep;
Moaning and twitching he showed them the spot,
They found the beggar, but life was not!

They laid him silently in the ground,
His only mourner the whimpering hound,
Who stretched himself out on the grave and cried
Like an orphan child — and so he died.