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 deserv'st; but this man gives to man,Brother to brother, this is all we can.Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dearShall find thee through all changes of the year:This Oak points out thy grave; the silent treeWill gladly stand a monument of thee.

We grieved for thee, and wished thy end were past;And willingly have laid thee here at last:For thou hadst lived till every thing that cheersIn thee had yielded to the weight of years;Extreme old age had wasted thee away,And left thee but a glimmering of the day;Thy ears were deaf, and feeble were thy knees,--I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze,Too weak to stand against its sportive breath,And ready for the gentlest stroke of death.It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed;Both man and woman wept when thou wert dead;Not only for a thousand thoughts that were,Old household thoughts, in which thou hadst thy share;But for some precious boons vouchsafed to thee,Found scarcely any where in like degree!For love, that comes wherever life and senseAre given by God, in thee was most intense;A chain of heart, a feeling of the mind,A tender sympathy, which did thee bindNot only to us Men, but to thy Kind:Yea, for thy fellow-brutes in thee we sawA soul of love, love's intellectual law:--Hence, if we wept, it was not done in shame;Our tears from passion and from reason came,And, therefore, shalt thou be an honoured name!