The Isles of Loch Awe and Other Poems of my Youth ::

My dog is buried near the garden seat,
And, when I sit there, slumbers at my feet,
As she has done before;
So I prefer that place, that I may be
Near one whose sweetest rest was nearest me,
And thus in part restore
The past of friendship, or at least revive
Affections that grow faint and fugitive,
When rendered back no more
By those who paid them doubly when alive.

Her grave is deep—the sunbeams cannot reach
Her coldness—nor the music of kind speech
Enter her earth-stopped ear.
She was as white as snow, and is as cold;
Pure once, but now defiled with garden mould;
And eyes that have been clear

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Are dull, and full of dust that gives no pain—
They bear no image to the little brain—
She knows not I am near.
Her sleep is peaceful—let it so remain.

A loveless Sultan with a thousand wives
Knows nought of that affliction which deprives
A husband of his wife;
And those who rate a dog by what he cost
Would never dream the half of what I lost
In such a little life.
She was my friend in boyhood, not my slave;
My boyhood now lies buried in her grave,
And manhood's joyless strife
Opens before me on the world's rough wave.

In pleasant country scenes by hill and stream,
Her image haunts me like a waking dream;
And in the deep, long grass,
When evening sunshine lights the crimson seeds,
And plays about the wild flowers and the weeds,
Her spirit seems to pass
With a faint rustle and a noiseless tread—
See! the tall hayseeds wave above her head—
It is not so, alas!
It was the wind:—she lives not—she is dead!

164

My study hearth is cheerful still, and bright;
But from the rug one spot of living white
Is gone, and all seems dark.
And now I feel I am alone indeed—
No gentle eye to watch me as I read,
No little soul to mark
The changes of my countenance, and wait
Until the cinders blacken in the grate,
To rouse me with her bark—
I miss these little services of late.

My window looks upon her place of rest;
My hearth is cold as a forsaken nest:
But from the setting moon
Extends the shadow of the pointed yew,
And with its midnight finger it points true—
It will be midnight soon.
'Tis on the home of one I could not save:
She loved the sun, and in return he gave
His richest beams at noon,
And scattered daisies on my old dog's grave.

He, when the earth was hardened round the dead
By nightly frosts, laid snowdrops on her bed,
His fairest coverlet.
And now I know how beautiful is death,
For her remains sustain them from beneath;
And she is living yet

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In humble flowers as meek as her meek nature,
As white and gentle as that gentle creature
Whose loss I so regret,
And each white flower becomes a living feature.

I would not slight the gentle faith of those
Who hope for compensation for the woes
Of even the inferior kinds,
In some eternal future which they guess—
Some future of such tranquil happiness
As well might suit their minds;
Yet reason plucks the fairest wings of faith,
And owns the dark reality of death—
The common lot which binds
The higher creatures unto those beneath.

University of Virginia Library

MY OLD DOG'S GRAVE.