LIE here, without a record of thy worth, <br />Beneath a covering of the common earth! <br />It is not from unwillingness to praise, <br />Or want of love, that here no Stone we raise; <br />More thou deserv'st; but 'this' man gives to man, <br />Brother to brother, 'this' is all we can. <br />Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear <br />Shall find thee through all changes of the year: <br />This Oak points out thy grave; the silent tree <br />Will gladly stand a monument of thee. <br />We grieved for thee, and wished thy end were past; <br />And willingly have laid thee here at last: <br />For thou hadst lived till everything that cheers <br />In thee had yielded to the weight of years; <br />Extreme old age had wasted thee away, <br />And left thee but a glimmering of the day; <br />Thy ears were deaf, and feeble were thy knees,-- <br />I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze, <br />Too weak to stand against its sportive breath, <br />And ready for the gentlest stroke of death. <br />It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed; <br />Both man and woman wept when thou wert dead; <br />Not only for a thousand thoughts that were, <br />Old household thoughts, in which thou hadst thy share; <br />But for some precious boons vouchsafed to thee, <br />Found scarcely anywhere in like degree! <br />For love, that comes wherever life and sense <br />Are given by God, in thee was most intense; <br />A chain of heart, a feeling of the mind, <br />A tender sympathy, which did thee bind <br />Not only to us Men, but to thy Kind: <br />Yea, for thy fellow-brutes in thee we saw <br />A soul of love, love's intellectual law:-- <br />Hence, if we wept, it was not done in shame; <br />Our tears from passion and from reason came, <br />And, therefore, shalt thou be an honoured name!<br /><br />William Wordsworth<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tribute-to-the-memory-of-the-same-dog/
