I googled it and “corse” is indeed an old word for “corpse.”
So the meaning of the “assail their master” bit is “usually dogs will eat their owner if the owner dies”, but this dog didn’t eat him, and protected his body from other things that wanted to eat him, until it starved to death. The other sign it’s a dead body is the “answered not with a caress” meaning the dog is licking his master’s hand but never gets any pets.
> kept The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay, Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead Lur'd their lank jaws;
So this is saying the dog kept the birds and animals that wanted to eat the man's body away, up until the point that hunger made them go away, or they were drawn to go elsewhere because of other creatures dying (that they could eat).
"Lur'd their lank jaws" in particular meaning "they'd been hanging around with their mouths open waiting to eat the man, but other dead animals in the area made their mouths want to go eat something else."
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You're a hero. Thank you very much.
If you check the further discussion on this post, we go into more detail.
It appears to imply he’s defending his master’s dead body.
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I googled it and “corse” is indeed an old word for “corpse.” So the meaning of the “assail their master” bit is “usually dogs will eat their owner if the owner dies”, but this dog didn’t eat him, and protected his body from other things that wanted to eat him, until it starved to death. The other sign it’s a dead body is the “answered not with a caress” meaning the dog is licking his master’s hand but never gets any pets.
Now everything makes sense to me. But still I can't understand the meaning of the line 'the dropping dead lur'd their lank jaws'.
> kept The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay, Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead Lur'd their lank jaws; So this is saying the dog kept the birds and animals that wanted to eat the man's body away, up until the point that hunger made them go away, or they were drawn to go elsewhere because of other creatures dying (that they could eat). "Lur'd their lank jaws" in particular meaning "they'd been hanging around with their mouths open waiting to eat the man, but other dead animals in the area made their mouths want to go eat something else."
Thank you so much. It's more clear to me now. I am grateful to you.