Alf The Wonder Beagle, R.I.P.

...last night of an undetected and undetectable heart problem...I can't write this now...oh God, we miss her!

The House Dog’s Grave 

by Robinson Jeffers

(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.

Alf the Wonder Beagle and Pokke-san the Tailless Manx
Friends Reunited in the Hands of the God of All Things