Songs, Ballads, and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

So mother Hubbard's dog's deceas'd,
That spaniel of repute.
Be mine the mournful task to write
The memoirs of the brute.
O'er all the authors of the day,
Biographers prevail,
I'll “point a moral” and adorn
That little dead dog's tale.

I'll sift the Hubbard family
For anecdotes canine;
The most minute particulars
Shall very soon be mine.
I'll bore the mournful dame herself
With questions most abrupt,
And first I'll learn, how, when, and where,
His canine mother pupp'd.

His puppyism I will trace,
On Hubbard's apron rock'd,
Describing when his tongue was worm'd,
And how his ears were dock'd.
His placid temper I will paint,
And his distemper too,
And all his little snappish tricks
The public eye shall view.

The dame and he were friends; 'tis thought
She gave him bones and milk;
And pattingly her hand smooth'd down
His coat as soft as silk.
But what of that?—The world shall know
That he hath snarl'd at her;
And that the dame hath kick'd the dog,
And call'd him “nasty cur!”

His love for her was cupboard love;
The fawning which proclaims
An instinct partiality
For dog's meat—more than Dames.
Alas! 'twas not l'affaire du cæur,
An ingrate was the pup,
Though oft his mistress for his meals
Hath cut her liver up.

And oft she did instruct the dog
Upon his tail to sit,
And elevate his two fore paws
And beg a tiny bit.
She plac'd the dainty on his nose,
And counted “one”—“two”—“three!”
And when he leapt and caught the prize,
A happy dame was she!

But I must tell of stolen joys,
Of milk that hath been miss'd;
Of hunted cats, and worried birds,
I have a grievous list.
Of rambles too with female dogs;
Yet, hearing the old scratch,
The dame to let the rover in
Would rise, and lift the latch.

In truth he was a naughty dog,
Of habits very wild;
He never yet was known to care
One jot for wife or child.

His wives were countless, each produced
Nine bantlings at a birth;
And some were drown'd, and some were left
To rot upon the earth.

But hold! is this my dead dog's tale?
And can I not produce
For naughtiness a friendly veil,
For folly an excuse?
And must the sage biographer
Of little dogs and dames,
Recall forgotten injuries,
Snarls, kicks, and ugly names?

The dog was a sagacious dog,
That's all the world need know;
The failings of the quadruped
'Tis not my task to show.
His quarrels with his kith and kin,
His puppy tricks when young,
If these I tell, he'll seem far worse
Than if I held my tongue.

It shall be so: my tongue I'll hold,
And not my grey goose quill;
His death is recent—for a while
Biographers be still.
Contemporaries point at specks,
But pause awhile, and then
We may be sure posterity
Will calmly hold the pen.

But now to take away a life
Each man of letters strives;
The undertakers thrive by deaths,
Biographers by Lives.
O'er new made graves, thro' murky mists
Of prejudice he jogs;
And so it seems biography
Is going—to the dogs!