Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO MY SETTER, SCOUT, by FRANK H. SELDEN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO MY SETTER, SCOUT, by                    
First Line: You are a tried and loyal friend
Last Line: We both together there will dwell?
Subject(s): Animals; Dogs


YOU ARE a tried and loyal friend;
The end
Of life will find you leal, unweary
Of tested bonds that naught can rend,
And e'en though years be sad and dreary
Our plighted friendship will extend.

A truer friend man never had;
'Tis sad
That 'mongst all earthly friends the fewest
Unfaithful ones should be clad
In canine lowliness; yet truest
They, be their treatment good or bad.

Within your eyes methinks I find
A kind
And thoughtful look of speechless feeling
That mem'ry's loosened cords unbind,
And let the dreamy past come stealing
Through your dumb, reflective mind.

Scout, my trusty friend, can it be
You see
Again, in retrospective dreaming,
The run, the woodland and the lea,
With past autumnal streaming
O'er every frost-dyed field and tree?

Or do you see now once again
The glen
And fern, the highland and the thistle,
And do you still remember when
We heard the bright-eyed woodcock whistle
Down by the rippling shrub-edged fen?

I see you turn a listening ear
To hear
The quail upon the flower-pied heather;
But, doggie, wait till uplands sere
And then the autumn's waning weather
Will bring the sport we hold so dear.

Then we will hunt the loamy swale
And trail
The snipe, their cunning wiles o'ercoming,
And oft will flush the bevied quail,
And hear the partridge slowly drumming
Dull echoes in the leaf-strewn dale.

When wooded hills with crimson light
Are bright
We'll stroll where trees and vines are growing,
And see birds warp their southern flight
At sundown, when the Day King's throwing
Sly kisses to the Queen of Night.

When shadows fall in life's fair dell,
And knell
Of death comes with the autumn's ev'n
To separate us, who can tell
But that, within the realm of heaven,
We both together there will dwell?





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