O jewel of my heart, I sing your praise, <br />Though you who are, alas! of middle age <br />Have never been to school, and cannot read <br />The weary printed page. <br /> <br />I sing your eyes, two pools in shadowed streams, <br />Where your soul shines in depths of sunny brown, <br />Alertly raised to read my every mood <br />Or thoughtfully cast down. <br /> <br />I sing the little nose, so glossy wet, <br />The well-trained sentry to your eager mind, <br />So swift to catch the delicate, glad scent <br />Of rabbits on the wind. <br /> <br />Ah, fair to me your wheaten-colored coat, <br />And fair the darker velvet of your ear, <br />Ragged and scarred with old hostilities <br />That never taught you fear. <br /> <br />But O! your heart, where my unworthiness <br />Is made perfection by love's alchemy; <br />How often does your doghood's faith cry shame <br />To my inconstancy. <br /> <br />At last I know the hunter Death will come <br />And whistle low the call you must obey. <br />So you will leave me, comrade of my heart, <br />To take a lonely way. <br /> <br />Some tell me, Tim, we shall not meet again, <br />But for their Loveless Logic need we care? -- <br />If I should win to Heav'n's gate I know <br />You will be waiting there.<br /><br />Winifred Mary Letts<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-tim-an-irish-terrier/
