Learn Of The Dog Poem by Emily Pfeiffer

I.

O HEART of man! be humble, nor disdain
The latest gospel preached beneath the sun;
Learn of the brute how thou, when life is done,
May loose its bonds, and cease, and know no pain:
Learn of the dog to die,—nay, that were vain;
Death followeth in the steps of life, and none
Win more of Death, the Shadow, than they won
Of Life in years of travail and of strain.

Learn of the dog to live, if thou wouldst find
His peace in death; for him, the silent spheres
Keep their long watch unchallenged overhead;
Know as he knows; love as he loves his kind,
Unweave the web of human toil and tears;
Die like a dog, when thought and love are dead.


II.

Poor friend and sport of man, like him unwise,
Away! Thou standest to his heart too near,
Too close for careless rest or healthy cheer,
Almost in thee the glad brute nature dies.
Go, scour the open fields in wild emprise,
Lead the free chase, leap, plunge into the mere,
Herd with thy fellows, stay no longer here,
Seeking thy law and gospel in man's eyes.

He cannot go; love holds him fast to thee;
More than the voices of his kind thy word
Lives in his heart; for him thy very rod
Has flowered; he only in thy will is free;
Cast him not out, the unclaimed savage herd
Would turn and rend him, pining for his God.