Thursday Short Poem: Jeffers’ “House Dog’s Grave”

I’m putting up another fairly well-known poem this week: Jeffers’ "The House Dog’s Grave", a poem he wrote in tribute to his beloved bulldog.  I have had several friends and acquaintances who have lost pets this month, and this poem is in tribute to all of them.

When I was twenty, I held my little dachsund "Keiska" in my arms as the vet put her to sleep; she had been my dear friend since I was eight.  I read this poem a lot that painful June of 1987, and I still — of course — get tearful whenever I read it.  Jeffers was so rarely sentimental; if you know his body of work, it really stands out as utterly unlike anything else he did.  It’s all the more moving as a result.

The House Dog’s Grave (for 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 nights 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 that when you are lying
Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.
 
No, dears, 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.