Ranolf And Amohia eBook

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Or ring-like tusks upthrusting through
The notches of his foaming lips,
By constant whetting planed away
To chisel-sharpness at their tips:
It weakened him - the knife-dig, too,
He caught when first commenced the fray;
When, as in haste I sprang astride
The narrowed gully - just a ditch
With flowering koromiko rich -
Between my feet the villain drove,
And fierce, with short indignant sniffs,
And grunts like muttering thunder, strove
To gain his haunts beyond the cliffs,
And foil the foes he fled from, yet defied.

"But Nim, my glorious bull-dog! Nim,
My mighty hunter of the boar,
Who never recked of life or limb
That old antagonist before!
That rip has finished his career -
His last boar-fight is fought; no more
He''ll come to greet me as of yore,
Wriggling his lithe spine till his tail
Whipped his black muzzle in the excess
Of cringing canine happiness;
No more his genuine love express
With such dumb signs and tokens clear,
Mock bites and mouthings of the hand,
Easy as words to understand.
Strange, a mere dog should be so dear!
But he is dead, and - done with, must we say?
Poor victim of this universal demon-play
Of Life - my fate to-morrow, his to-day,