Fidele's Grassy Tomb

The Squire sat propped in a pillowed chair,     His eyes were alive and clear of care,     But well he knew that the hour was come     To bid good-bye to his ancient home.     He looked on garden, wood, and hill,     He looked on the lake, sunny and still:     The last of earth that his eyes could see     Was the island church of Orchardleigh.     The last that his heart could understand     Was the touch of the tongue that licked his hand:     "Bury the dog at my feet," he said,     And his voice dropped, and the Squire was dead.     Now the dog was a hound of the Danish breed,     Staunch to love and strong at need:     He had dragged his master safe to shore     When the tide was ebbing at Elsinore.     From that day forth, as reason would,     He was named "Fidele," and made it good:     When the last of the mourners left the door     Fidele was dead on the chantry floor.     They buried him there at his master's feet,     And all that heard of it deemed it meet:     The story went the round for years,     Till it came at last to the Bishop's ears.     Bishop of Bath and Wells was he,     Lord of the lords of Orchardleigh;     And he wrote to the Parson the strongest screed     That Bishop may write or Parson read.     The sum of it was that a soulless hound     Was known to be buried in hallowed ground:     From scandal sore the Church to save     They must take the dog from his masters grave.     The heir was far in a foreign land,     The Parson was wax to my Lord's command:     He sent for the Sexton and bade him make     A lonely grave by the shore of the lake.     The Sexton sat by the water's brink     Where he used to sit when he used to think:     He reasoned slow, but he reasoned it out,     And his argument left him free from doubt.     "A Bishop," he said, "is the top of his trade:     But there's others can give him a start with the spade:     Yon dog, he carried the Squire ashore,     And a Christian couldn't ha' done no more.     The grave was dug; the mason came     And carved on stone Fidele's name;     But the dog that the Sexton laid inside     Was a dog that never had lived or died.     So the Parson was praised,and the scandal stayed,     Till, a long time after, the church decayed,     And, laying the floor anew, they found     In the tomb of the Squire the bones of a hound.     As for the Bishop of Bath and Wells     No more of him the story tells;     Doubtless he lived as a Prelate and Prince,     And died and was buried a century since.     And whether his view was right or wrong     Has little to do with this my song;     Something we owe him, you must allow;     And perhaps he has changed his mind by now.     The Squire in the family chantry sleeps,     The marble still his memory keeps:     Remember, when the name you spell,     There rest Fidele's bones as well.     For the Sexton's grave you need not search,     'Tis a nameless mound by the island church:     An ignorant fellow, of humble lot---     But. he knew one thing that a Bishop did not.