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.