Heads and tales

by Unknown

Mrs Elizabeth Barrett Browning's dog Flush.

Few have written so lovingly on the dog as this gifted poetess. Her dog Flush is described so well that Landseer could paint the creature almost to a hair. She has entered into the very feeling created in us by this favoured pet of our race. The beautiful stanzas[58] I have copied give also many little touches of her autobiography. This gifted lady was long an invalid. She could enter with rare sympathy into Cowper's attachments to animals. Her experience of the friendship of Flush is well told in the following lines, so different from Lord Byron's misanthropic verses on his dog:—

To Flush, my Dog.
Loving friend, the gift of one
Who her own true faith has run
Through her lower nature,
Be my benediction said
With my hand upon thy head,
Gentle fellow-creature!
Like a lady's ringlets brown
Flow thy silken ears adown
Either side demurely
Of thy silver-suited breast,
Shining out from all the rest
Of thy body purely.
Darkly brown thy body is,
Till the sunshine, striking this,
Alchemise its dulness,
When the sleek curls manifold
Flash all over into gold
With a burnish'd fulness.
Underneath my stroking hand,
Startled eyes of hazel bland
Kindling, growing larger,
Up thou leapest with a spring,
Full of prank and curveting
Leaping like a charger.
Leap! thy broad tail waves a light;
Leap! thy slender feet are bright,
Canopied in fringes;
Leap! those tassell'd ears of thine
Flicker strangely, fair and fine,
Down their golden inches.
Yet, my pretty, sporting friend,
Little is 't to such an end
That I praise thy rareness;
Other dogs may be thy peers
Haply in these drooping ears
And this glossy fairness.
But of thee it shall be said,
This dog watch'd beside a bed
Day and night unweary—
Watch'd within a curtain'd room,
Where no sunbeam brake the gloom,
Round the sick and dreary.
Roses gather'd 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
Track'd the hares, and follow'd 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 watch'd in reach
Of a faintly-utter'd speech,
Or a louder sighing.
And if one or two quick tears
Dropp'd 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 push'd 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 for ever.
And because he loved me so,
Better than his kind will do,
Often man or woman,
Give I back more love again
Than dogs often take of men,
Leaning from my Human.
Blessings on thee, dog of mine,
Pretty collars make thee fine,
Sugar'd milk make fat thee!
Pleasures wag on in thy tail,
Hands of gentle motion fail
Nevermore to pat thee!
Downy pillow take thy head,
Silken coverlet bestead,
Sunshine help thy sleeping!
No fly's buzzing wake thee up,
No man break thy purple cup
Set for drinking deep in.
Whisker'd cats arointed flee,
Sturdy stoppers keep from thee
Cologne distillations;
Nuts lie in thy path for stones,
And thy feast-day macaroons
Turn to daily rations!
Mock I thee in wishing weal?
Tears are in my eyes to feel
Thou art made so straightly;
Blessing needs must straighten too;
Little canst thou joy or do,
Thou who lovest greatly.
Yet be blessèd to the height
Of all good and all delight
Pervious to thy nature;
Only loved beyond that line,
With a love that answers thine,
Loving fellow-creature!