Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE POET AND HIS DOGS, by ARTHUR PETERSON



Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE POET AND HIS DOGS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Come on, my dogs! Come sandy, mozambique
Last Line: Home let us wander o'er the dusky hills!
Subject(s): Animals; Dogs; Soul


1

Come on, my dogs! Come Sandy, Mozambique,
Dick! 'Tis the hour of our outing. Come along
Old Sherry, slow with weight of years, but still
Eager for a ramble, collie tried and true.
I know a vale where runs a purling stream,
Cool -- clear as crystal; aye you know it too;
Our favorite haunt. Thither to-day we'll hie.
The forest calls! Come on, my dogs! Away!

2

Like sentinels great oaks and chestnuts guard
This valley. From the surging throngs of men
Far off it lies, by rolling meadows fair
Surrounded -- rolling meadows interspersed
With bits of ancient woodland yet unhewn.
The resting place this of my dogs and me.
Our favorite haunt. In spring's melodious days,
In midsummer's long-lingering afternoons,
In pensive autumn, and in winter bleak,
Always our favorite -- always beautiful!

3

Like Beavor's vale to the first Quaker (who
There tarrying, heard the apocalyptic voice)
This vale secluse to me: a sacred spot,
A sylvan fane, where to the ears of him
Who heeds them mystic voices oft-times come --
Voices from out the world invisible,
Onward and upward ever leading us.
To-day these mystic voices seem to preach
A sermon old, yet new, perchance, to some:
Its theme sublime -- the unity of life,
The kinship, hence, of all created things.

4

One spirit vivifies all nature! One
Spirit eterne man, beast and plant inspires!
One spirit dwells within my human frame,
And the lithe organisms of these, my dogs,
And the great body of this old oak tree!
One and the selfsame spirit animates,
From lowest to highest, all created things!
Source of all life, from whom, by whom we live!

5

One spirit through a myriad different forms --
Past, present and to come -- made manifest!
One spirit working through the aeons! One
Essence celestial, ceaseless energy,
Onward and upward ever leading us,
Ever evolving, here upon this earth,
New types and higher, of which the last is man!
Man, marching at the front: creation's lord:
Lifted from out the ranks of his own kind
To be the leader up the long ascent:
Himself led by that Spirit which leads all.

6

If the last type is man, what was the first?
What ancestry is his, stretching far back
Into the unknown beginnings of our earth?
What forbears fierce, less human than my dogs,
Were his? What dwellers in the landless sea?
What saurian shapes implacable? What form
Was it, in latter days evolved, which served
As joint forefather of my dogs and me?

7

For as, oft-times, to one of humble birth,
Who lifts himself to high estate, still cling
Instincts and habits of his lowlier past,
So to my frame corporeal still cling
Vestiges of that lowlier life of old;
And deep within my soul, as in an abyss,
Echoes I hear of the world eocene --
Cries inarticulate -- love, hatred, joy --
Cries of the creature primitive, untuned
To the conventions of our ordered sphere.

8

Aye, this the truth the mystic voices preach
Here in this vale sequestered: "Of one blood
Are all earth's creatures: quickened by one life."

9

Why then do narrow theologians give
To me a soul immortal -- to my dog
Naught but a fleeting breath? One spirit -- one
Eternal essence doth inform us both.
If I a soul possess then so does he.
We are, methinks, like lamps of different shapes
Fed by one central fire. The loftier I,
The lowlier vessel he. In me the flame
Burns, peradventure, with more dazzling sheen
Than in my dog, but 'tis the selfsame fire.
A difference in degree it is, not kind.

10

When from its earthly dwelling place the soul
Ebbs, whether man's or dog's, and what we call
Death parts the spirit from the mouldering clay,
Whence goes that soul? Will we, to some new world
Transferred, retain our own identity,
I and my dogs, and, reunited there,
Wander together in Elysian Fields,
Comrades, as in the pleasant paths of earth?
Or will the soul into infinitude,
Into the deep from whence it came, recede;
And, merged within that spiritual sea,
Await re-birth into another form?
Who knows? The door is closed beyond the grave.

11

And thou, old oak, who for a hundred years
Hath battled with the storm, and greater grown
Through battling; when thy last hour shall have come,
And all bereft of life lies this vast frame,
Whence will have gone the spirit resolute
Which from a tiny acorn raised thee up
To what thou art, and now in thee abides?
Wilt thou, too, greet me in another world?

12

Come on, my dogs! Come Sandy, Mozambique,
Dick, Sherry old! The sun hath set: the moon
Rises in the east: gray shadows fill the vale.
Home let us wander o'er the dusky hills!





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