Flush or Faunus.
You see this dog. It was but yesterday
I mused forgetful of his presence here;
Till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear;
When from the pillow, where wet-cheeked I lay,
A head as hairy as Faunus’ thrust its way
Right sudden against my face, two golden, clear,
Great eyes astonished mine; a drooping ear
Did flap me on either cheek to dry the spray.
I started first; as some Arcadian
Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove;
But as the bearded vision closelier ran
My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose above
Surprise and sadness; thanking the true Pan
Who by low creatures leads to heights of love.
The poem is equally beautiful:
To Flush, my Dog.
Other dogs may be thy peers
Haply in these drooping ears
And this glossy fairness.
But of thee it shall be said,
This dog watched beside a bed
Day and night unweary;
Watched within a curtained room,
Where no sunbeam brake the gloom
Round the sick and weary.
Roses gathered for a vase
In that chamber died apace,
Beam and breeze resigning;
This dog only waited on,
Knowing that when light is gone
Love remains for shining.
Other dogs in thymy dew
Tracked the hares and followed through
Sunny moor or meadow;
This dog only crept and crept
Next a languid cheek that slept,
Sharing in the shadow.
Other dogs of loyal cheer
Bounded at the whistle clear,
Up the woodside hieing;
This dog only watched in reach
Of a faintly uttered speech,
Or a louder sighing.
And if one or two quick tears
Dropped upon his glossy ears,
Or a sigh came double,
Up he sprang in eager haste,
Fawning, fondling, breathing fast
In a tender trouble.
And this dog was satisfied
If a pale, thin hand would glide
Down his dewlaps sloping,
Which he pushed his nose within,
After platforming his chin
On the palm left open.
This dog, if a friendly voice
Call him now to blither choice
Than such chamber keeping,
“Come out,” praying from the door,
Presseth backward as before,
Up against me leaping.
Therefore to this dog will I,
Tenderly, not scornfully,
Render praise and favour;
With my hand upon his head,
Is my benediction said,
Therefore and forever.
Mrs. Browning said in a note to this
poem: “This dog was the gift of my
dear and admired friend, Miss Mitford,
and belongs to the beautiful race
she has rendered celebrated among
English and American readers.”
Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, addressed
a long poem to his dog, ending:
When my last bannock’s on the hearth,
Of that thou canna want thy share;
While I ha’e house or hauld on earth,
My Hector shall ha’e shelter there.
Another favourite was honoured
by Dr. Holland, the essayist, lecturer,
magazine editor, and poet:
To my Dog Blanco.
My dear, dumb friend, low lying there,
A willing vassal at my feet,
Glad partner of my home and fare,
My shadow in the street.
I look into your great brown eyes,
Where love and loyal homage shine,
And wonder where the difference lies
Between your soul and mine!
For all of good that I have found
Within myself or human kind,
Hath royally informed and crowned
Your gentle heart and mind.
I scan the whole broad earth around
For that one heart which, leal and true,
Bears friendship without end or bound,
And find the prize in you.
I trust you as I trust the stars;
Nor cruel loss, nor scoff of pride,
Nor beggary, nor dungeon bars,
Can move you from my side!
As patient under injury
As any Christian saint of old,
As gentle as a lamb with me,
But with your brothers bold;
More playful than a frolic boy,
More watchful than a sentinel,
By day and night your constant joy
To guard and please me well.
I clasp your head upon my breast—
The while you whine and lick my hand—
And thus our friendship is confessed,
And thus we understand!
Ah, Blanco! did I worship God
As truly as you worship me,
Or follow where my Master trod
With your humility—
Did I sit fondly at his feet,
As you, dear Blanco, sit at mine,
And watch him with a love as sweet,
My life would grow divine!
Maria Edgeworth wrote to her aunt,
Mrs. Ruxton, in 1819, “I see my little
dog on your lap, and feel your hand
patting his head, and hear your voice
telling him that it is for Maria’s sake
he is there.”
What a pathetic friendship existed
between Emily Brontë and the dog
whom she was sure could understand
every word she said to him! “She always
fed the animals herself; the old
cat; Flossy, her favourite spaniel;
Keeper, the fierce bulldog, her own
constant dear companion, whose portrait,
drawn by her own spirited hand,
is still extant. And the creatures on
the moor were all in a sense her pets
and familiar with her. The intense
devotion of this silent woman to all
manner of dumb creatures has something
almost inexplicable. As her old
father and her sisters followed her to
the grave they were joined by another
mourner, Keeper, Emily’s dog. He
walked in front of all, first in the rank
of mourners, and perhaps no other
creature had loved the dead woman
quite so well. When they had laid
her to sleep in the dark, airless vault
under the church, and when they had
crossed the bleak churchyard and had
entered the empty house again, Keeper
went straight to the door of the room
where his mistress used to sleep, and
laid down across the threshold. There
he howled piteously for many days,
knowing not that no lamentations
could wake her any more.”
Dogs were supposed by the ancient
Gaels to know of the death of a friend,
however far they might be separated.
But this is getting too gloomy. Do
you know how the proverb originated
“as cold as a dog’s nose”? An old
verse tells us:
There sprang a leak in Noah’s ark,
Which made the dog begin to bark;
Noah took his nose to stop the hole,
And hence his nose is always cold.
No one has expressed more appreciation
of the noble qualities of dogs than
the abstracted, philosophic Wordsworth.
Incident
Characteristic of a Favourite Dog.
On his morning rounds the master
Goes to learn how all things fare;
Searches pasture after pasture,
Sheep and cattle eyes with care;
And, for silence or for talk,
He hath comrades in his walk;
Four dogs, each pair of different breed,
Distinguished two for scent and two for speed.
See a hare before him started!
Off they fly in earnest chase;
Every dog is eager-hearted,
All the four are in the race:
And the hare whom they pursue,
Hath an instinct what to do;
Her hope is near: no turn she makes;
But, like an arrow, to the river takes.
Deep the river was, and crusted
Thinly by a one night’s frost;
But the nimble hare hath trusted
To the ice, and safely crost;
She hath crossed, and without heed
All are following at full speed,
When, lo! the ice, so thinly spread,
Breaks—and the greyhound, Dart, is over head!
Better fate have Prince and Swallow—
See them cleaving to the sport!
Music has no heart to follow,
Little Music, she stops short.
She hath neither wish nor heart,
Hers is now another part:
A loving creature she, and brave!
And fondly strives her struggling friend to save.
From the brink her paws she stretches,
Very hands as you would say!
And afflicting moans she fetches,
As he breaks the ice away.
For herself she hath no fears,
Him alone she sees and hears,
Makes efforts and complainings; nor gives o’er
Until her fellow sank, and reappeared no more.
Tribute
To the Memory of the Same Dog.
Lie here, without a record of thy worth,
Beneath a covering of the common earth!
It is not from unwillingness to praise,
Or want of love, that here no stone we raise;
More thou deservest; but this man gives to man,
Brother to brother, this is all we can.
Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear
Shall find thee through all changes of the year:
This oak points out thy grave; the silent tree
Will gladly stand a monument of thee.
Cowper, who tenderly loved all animals,
did not fail to honour a dog with
a poetical tribute in The Dog and the
Water Lily, celebrating the devotion
of “my spaniel, prettiest of his race.”
It was the time when Ouse displayed
His lilies newly blown;
Their beauties I intent surveyed,
And one I wished my own.
With cane extended far, I sought
To steer it close to land;
But still the prize, though nearly caught,
Escaped my eager hand.
Beau marked my unsuccessful pains
With fixed, considerate face,
And puzzling set his puppy brains
To comprehend, the case.
But chief myself, I will enjoin,
Awake at duty’s call,
To show a love as prompt as thine
To Him who gives us all.
But with a chirrup clear and strong,
Dispersing all his dream,
I thence withdrew, and followed long
The windings of the stream.
My ramble finished, I returned.
Beau, trotting far before,
The floating wreath again discerned,
And, plunging, left the shore.
I saw him, with that lily cropped,
Impatient swim to meet
My quick approach, and soon he dropped
The treasure at my feet.
Charmed with this sight, the world, I cried,
Shall hear of this, thy deed:
My dog shall mortify the pride
Of man’s superior breed.
Forster tells us fully of Dickens’s
devotion to his many dogs, quoting
the novelist’s inimitable way of describing
his favourites. In Dr. Marigold
there is an especially good bit
about “me and my dog.”
“My dog knew as well as I did when
she was on the turn. Before she broke
out he would give a howl and bolt.
How he knew it was a mystery to
me, but the sure and certain knowledge
of it would wake him up out of
his soundest sleep, and would give a
howl and bolt. At such times I wished
I was him.” After the death of child
and wife, he says: “Me and my dog
was all the company left in the cart
now, and the dog learned to give a
short bark when they wouldn’t bid,
and to give another and a nod of his
head when I asked him ‘Who said
half a crown?’ He attained to an
immense height of popularity, and, I
shall always believe, taught himself
entirely out of his own head to growl
at any person in the crowd that bid
as low as sixpence. But he got to be
well on in years, and one night when
I was convulsing York with the spectacles
he took a convulsion on his own
account, upon the very footboard by
me, and it finished him.”
Mr. Laurence Hutton, in the St.
Nicholas, has lately expressed his sentiments
about dogs, as follows:
“It was Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh,
I think, who spoke in sincere
sympathy of the man who “led a dog-less
life.” It was Mr. “Josh Billings,”
I know, who said that in the whole
history of the world there is but one
thing that money can not buy—to wit,
the wag of a dog’s tail. And it was
Prof. John C. Van Dyke who declared
the other day, in reviewing the artistic
career of Landseer, that he made his
dogs too human. It was the great
Creator himself who made dogs too
human—so human that sometimes
they put humanity to shame.
“I have been the friend and confidant
of three dogs, who helped to humanize
me for the space of a quarter of a
century, and who had souls to be
saved, I am sure, and when I cross
the Stygian River I expect to find on
the other shore a trio of dogs wagging
their tails almost off in their joy
at my coming, and with honest tongues
hanging out to lick my hands and my
feet. And then I am going, with these
faithful, devoted dogs at my heels, to
talk dogs over with Dr. John Brown,
Sir Edward Landseer, and Mr. Josh
Billings.”
Do dogs have souls—a spark of
life that after death lives on elsewhere?
Many have hoped so, from Wesley
to the little boy who has lost his cherished
comrade.
It is certain that dogs show qualities
that in a man would be called reason,
quick apprehension, presence of mind,
courage, self-abnegation, affection unto
death.
At the close of this chapter may I
be allowed to tell of two of my special
friends—one a fox terrier, owned by
Mr. Howard Ticknor, of Boston; the
other my own interesting pet—who
have never failed to learn any trick
suggested to them? Antoninus Pius,
called Tony for short, goes through
more than a score of wonderful accomplishments,
such as playing on
the piano, crossing his paws and looking
extremely artistic, if not inspired,
dancing a skirt dance, spinning on a
flax wheel, performing on a tambourine
swung by a ribbon round his
neck; plays pattycake with his mistress.
And my own intelligent Yorkshire
terrier mounts a chair back and
preaches with animation, eloquence,
and forcible gestures; knocks down
a row of books and then sits on them,
as a book reviewer; stands in a corner
with right paw uplifted, as a tableau
of Liberty enlightening the
World; rings a bell repeatedly and
with increasing energy, to call us to
the table; sings with head and eyes
uplifted, to accompaniment of harmonica—and
each is just beginning
his education.
I have read lately an account of a
knowing dog, with a sort of sharp
cockney ability, who used to go daily
with penny in mouth and buy a roll.
Once one right out of the oven was
given to him; he dropped it, seized
his money off the counter, and changed
his baker.
