With shudders chill as aconite, The couchant chewer of the cud Will start at times in pussy fright Before the dogs, when reads her sprite The streaks predicting streams of blood. VI She thinks they may mean something; thinks They may mean nothing: haply both. Where darkness all her daylight drinks, She fain would find a leader lynx, Not too much taxing mental sloth. VII Cleft like the fated house in twain, One half is, Arm! and one, Retrench! Gambetta’s word on dull MacMahon: ‘The cow that sees a passing train’: So spies she Russian, German, French. VIII She? no, her weakness: she unbraced Among those athletes fronting storms! The muscles less of steel than paste, Why, they of nature feel distaste For flash, much more for push, of arms. IX The poet sings, and well know we, That ‘iron draws men after it.’ But towering wealth may seem the tree Which bears the fruit _Indemnity_, And draw as fast as battle’s fit, X If feeble be the hand on guard, Alas, alas! And nations are Still the mad forces, though the scarred. Should they once deem our emblem Pard Wagger of tail for all save war;— XI Mechanically screwed to flail His flanks by Presses conjuring fear;— A money-bag with head and tail;— Too late may valour then avail! As you beheld, my cannonier, XII When with the staff of Benedek, On the plateau of Königgrätz, You saw below that wedgeing speck; Foresaw proud Austria rammed to wreck, Where Chlum drove deep in smoky jets. _February_ 1887. TO CHILDREN: FOR TYRANTS I STRIKE not thy dog with a stick! I did it yesterday: Not to undo though I gained The Paradise: heavy it rained On Kobold’s flanks, and he lay. II Little Bruno, our long-ear pup, From his hunt had come back to my heel. I heard a sharp worrying sound, And Bruno foamed on the ground, With Koby as making a meal. III I did what I could not undo Were the gates of the Paradise shut Behind me: I deemed it was just. I left Koby crouched in the dust, Some yards from the woodman’s hut. IV He bewhimpered his welting, and I Scarce thought it enough for him: so, By degrees, through the upper box-grove, Within me an old story hove, Of a man and a dog: you shall know. V The dog was of novel breed, The Shannon retriever, untried: His master, an old Irish lord, In an oaken armchair snored At midnight, whisky beside. VI Perched up a desolate tower, Where the black storm-wind was a whip To set it nigh spinning, these two Were alone, like the last of a crew, Outworn in a wave-beaten ship. VII