CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



shout or signal for all the Christian creatures were 

 alike helpless in their despair shot swift as a sun- 

 beam over the deep, and by those golden tresses, 

 sinking and brightening through the wave, brought 

 the noble child ashore, and stood over him, as if in 

 joy and sorrow, lying too like death on the sand! 

 And when little Harry opened his glazed eyes, and 

 looked bewildered on all the faces around and then 

 fainted, and revived and fainted again till at last he 

 came to dim recollection of this world on the bosom 

 of the physician brought thither with incomprehen- 

 sible speed from his dwelling afar off thou didst lick 

 his cold white hands and blue face, with a whine that 

 struck awful pity into all hearts, and thou didst fol- 

 low him one of the group as he was borne along 

 and frisking and gambolling no more all that day, 

 gently didst thou lay thyself down at the feet of 

 his little bed, and watch there unsleeping all night 

 long! For the boy knew that God had employed one 

 of his lowly creatures to save him and beseeched 

 that he might lie there to be looked at by the light 

 of the taper, till he himself, as the pains went away, 

 might fall asleep! And we, the watchers by his bed- 

 side, heard him in his dreams mentioning the crea- 

 ture's name in his prayers. 



Yet at times O Fro thou wert a sad dog indeed 

 neither to bind nor to hold for thy blood was 

 [75] 



