3-074-904 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Lost!, drawn by S. Berkley, 1883. 'High on the mountain and the moor, Deep in the glen below, And clinging to each craggy ledge, Wide gleams the wintry snow. It shrouds in white the scanty grass That fails the starving sheep; And, where the shepherd has to pass Across the rocky steep, Too near the brink, with heedless tread, His sliding feet go wrong, He totters, reels with dizzy head, Falls prone the ground along, And tumbling over, grasps in vain Some branch or stem - it snaps...that sound to-night! They hark In hamlets of the vale; The faithful collie's ceaseless bark Shrieks out the dreadful tale. No human eye saw Donald's fall; His dog alone was near, And howled with grief, and strove to crawl, In fondness and in fear, Adown the sloping rocky side All slippery with snow, To reach his master, whom he spied Laid motionless below. Till, baffled at the frightful edge Where scarce his paws can hold, The loving creature stands for hours In winter midnight's cold, And vents his anguish and alarm With such a strength of sound, Such fury of the heart, it wakes All sleeping folk around. They rise! they meet! they seek the hill, And, in the snow beneath, Find Donald - stunned, yet breathing still, A man just saved from Death'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.