A Damn Good Girl
(Haig, an English bulldog)
I've changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there.
So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you'd soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.
I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the night through
I lie alone.
But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read--and I fear often grieving for me--
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.
You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope than when you are lying
Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.
No, dear, that's too much hope: you are not so well cared for
As I have been.
And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided. . . .
But to me you were true.
You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved.
Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end.
If this is my end,
I am not lonely.
I am not afraid. I am still yours.
Robinson Jeffers, 1941
in the middle of all the crap o' the day i stopped to read your blog as i always do and burst out blubbering like a child
ReplyDeleteWe weep for ourselves as much as for them. In this, they bestow on us their last favor.
ReplyDeleteI just came upon your blog by accident, and it was like an angel sitting on my shoulder. I also had a dog named Mischief who was born in 1995 and passed away in the fall of 2008. Her collar still hangs on a door handle in our family room. Thanks for your poem.
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