Page:Poems Cook.djvu/308

But there's one whose good deeds are scarce noted by any;
 The field of his valour, the ice-cover'd scalps;
'Tis the dumb and the faithful, the saviour of many;
 The brave and the beautiful Dog of the Alps.

With his mission of mercy, right onward he'll hurry;
 No wild, howling storm-burst shall turn him aside:
Though the tottering avalanche threaten to bury,
 And the arrowy sleet-shower bristle his hide.
We drink health to the bold one, whose strong arm has wrested
 The perishing form from the billowy grave:
But a laurel is due to the dog who has breasted
 The winding-sheet found in the snow-drifted wave.

Through the fearful ravine, when the thick flakes are falling
 O'er peaks, while the cutting wind curdles his breath;
He wends his lone way with the wallet-strap galling,
 To seek the lost pilgrim, and snatch him from death.
Where the traveller lies, with his parting breath sighing
 Some name that he loves in a tremulous prayer;
The Dog of the Alps comes with life to the dying;
 With warmth to the frozen, and hope to despair.

It is not ambition that leads him to danger,
 He toils for no trophy, he seeks for no fame;
He faces all peril, and succours the stranger;
 But asks not the wide world to blazon his name.
'Twould be well if the great ones who boast of their reason,
 Would copy his work on the winter-bound scalps;
And cherish the helpless in sorrow's bleak season,
 Like the brave and the beautiful Dog of the Alps.

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