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Quiet corner: poems and thoughts on dogs

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Karlin

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The Quiet Corner is just that -- a calm place for you to go when you want solitude and comfort, to think about all dogs or any dogs or one particular dog, whether he or she be with you in body, or in spirit.

To preserve quietness here, the thread is closed to general posts.

Karlin

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"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace." - Milan Kundera

-------------------------------

MEMORIES

"Not the least hard thing to bear when
they go from us, these quiet friends,
is that they carry away with them so
many years of our lives. Yet, if they
find warmth therein, who would
begrudge them those years that they
have so guarded?
And whatever they take,
be sure they have deserved."

--- John Galsworthy ---

-----------------------------
SEPARATE LIFETIMES

We who choose to surround ourselves
with lives even more temporary than our
own, live within a fragile circle;
easily and often breached.
Unable to accept its awful gaps,
we would still live no other way.
We cherish memory as the only
certain immortality, never fully
understanding the neccesary plan....

--- Irving Townsend ---
"The Once Again Prince"

------------------------------------

THE DOGS WHO HAVE SHARED OUR LIVES

The dogs who've shared our lives.
In subtle ways they let us know
their spirit still survives.
Old habits still make us think
we hear a barking at the door.
Or step back when we drop
a tasty morsel on the floor.
Our feet still go around the place
the food dish used to be,
And, sometime, coming home at night,
we miss them terribly.
And although time may bring new friends
and a new food dish to fill,
That one place in our hearts
belongs to them...
and always will.


---Linda Barnes ---

---------------------------------

EPITAPH TO A DOG

Near this spot Are deposited the Remains
Of one Who Possessed Beauty
Without Vanity,Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man
Without his Vices.
This Praise, which would be unmeaning
flattery If inscribed over Human Ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the
Memory of "Boatswain," a Dog
Who was born at Newfoundland,
May, 1803,
And died at Newstead Abbey
Nov. 18, 1808.


--- Lord Byron ---

---------------------------------

ONE MAN'S SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO A DOG

The one absolutely unselfish friend that
a man can have in this selfish world,
the one that never deserts him,
the one that never proves ungrateful
or treacherous, is his dog.

A man's dog stands by him in prosperity
and in poverty,
in health and in sickness.
He will sleep on the cold ground where
the wintery winds blow,
and the snow drives fiercely,
if only he may be near his master's
side. He will kiss the hand that has no
food to offer, he will lick the sores
and wounds that come in encounter with
the roughness of the world. He guards
the sleep of his Pauper master as if he
were a prince.

When all other friends desert,
he remains.
When riches take wings and reputation
falls to pieces, he is as constant in
his love as the sun in it's journey
through the heavens.
If misfortune drives the master forth
an outcast in the world, friendless
and homeless, the faithful dog asks
no higher privilege than that of
accompanying him to guard against
danger, to fight against his enemies.

And when the last scene of all comes,
and death takes the master in it's
embrace, and his body is laid away in
the cold ground, no matter if all other
friends pursue their way, there by the
graveside will the noble dog be found,
his head between his paws, his eyes sad,
but open in alert watchfulness,
faithful and true, even in death.


-From a speech given by
Former Senator George Graham Vest
of Missouri. Delivered in 1870 when he
was acting as a lawyer in a suit against
a man who had killed the dog of his
client. -- He won the case.

------------------------------

FOUR FEET

I have done mostly what men do,
And pushed it out of my mind;
But I can't forget, if I wanted to,
Four-Feet trotting behind.

Day after day, the whole day through--
Wherever my road inclined--
Four-Feet said, 'I am coming with you!'
And trotted along behind.

Now I must go by some other round--
Which I shall never find--
Some where that does not carry the sound
Of Four-Feet trotting behind.

--- Rudyard Kipling ---

------------------------

A PRAYER FOR ANIMALS

Hear our humble prayer, O God, for our
friends the animals,
especially for animals who are suffering;
for any that are hunted or lost or
deserted or frightened or hungry;
for all that must be put to death.

We entreat for them all Thy mercy and pity,
and for those who deal with them we ask a
heart of compassion and gentle hands and
kindly words. Make us, ourselves, to be true
friends to animals and so to share the blessings
of the merciful.

--- Albert Schweitzer ---

----------------------

IF IT SHOULD BE

If it should be that I grow weak
And pain should keep me from my sleep,
Then you must do what must be done,
For this last battle cannot be won.

You will be sad, I understand.
Don't let your grief then stay your hand.
For this day, more than all the rest,
Your love for me must stand the test.

We've had so many happy years.
What is to come can hold no fears.
You'd not want me to suffer so;
The time has come -- please let me go.

Take me where my need they'll tend,
And please stay with me till the end.
Hold me firm and speak to me,
Until my eyes no longer see.

I know in time that you will see
The kindness that you did for me.
Although my tail its last has waved,
From pain and suffering I've been saved.

Please do not grieve -- it must be you
Who had this painful thing to do.
We've been so close, we two, these years;
Don't let your heart hold back its tears.

--- Anonymous ---

------------------------------

Only Wanted You

They say memories are golden well maybe that is true,
I never wanted memories, I only wanted you.

A million times I needed you, a million times I cried.
If love alone could have saved you you never would have died.

In life I loved you dearly, In death I love you still.
In my heart you hold a place no on could ever fill

If tears could build a stairway and heartache make a lane,
I'd walk the path to heaven and bring you back again.

Our family chain if broken, and nothing seems the same.
But as God calls us one by one, the chain will link again.

--Author unknown

------------------------------------

We Have a Secret

We have a secret, you and I
that no one else shall know,
for who but I can see you lie
each night in fire glow?
And who but I can reach my hand
before we go to bed
and feel the living warmth of you
and touch your silken head?
And only I walk woodland paths
and see ahead of me,
your small form racing with the wind
so young again, and free.
And only I can see you swim
in every brook I pass
and when I call, no one but I
can see the bending grass.

-Author Unknown
 
The following originally appeared in The Oregonian newspaper in 1926 and later was included in author Ben Hur Lampman's book of essays and poems, "How Could I Be Forgetting."

A subscriber of the Ontario Argus has written to the editor of that fine weekly, propounding a certain question, which, so far as we know, yet remains unanswered. The question is this -- "Where shall I bury my dog?" It is asked in advance of death.

The Oregonian trusts the Argus will not be offended if this newspaper undertakes an answer, for surely such a question merits a reply, since the man who asked it, on the evidence of his letter, loves the dog. It distresses him to think of his favorite as dishonored in death, mere carrion in the winter rains. Within that sloping, canine skull, he must reflect when the dog is dead, were thoughts that dignified the dog and honored the master. The hand of the master and of the friend stroked often in affection this rough, pathetic husk that was a dog.

We would say to the Ontario man that there are various places in which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a good dog.

Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavorous bone, or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else. For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps at long and at last.

On a hill where the wind is unrebuked, and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost -- if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.

If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call -- come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they shall not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there. People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing. The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of its master.
 
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