<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><h2 id="post-443" style="clear: both; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); margin: 0px; text-align: justify; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><font size="4" style="font-weight: normal;" class="">The House Dog’s Grave </font></h2><br class=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""></span><div class="entry" style="line-height: 1.4em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="">I’ve changed my ways a little; I cannot now<br class="">Run with you in the evenings along the shore,<br class="">Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,<br class="">You see me there.</div><div class="">So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door<br class="">Where I used to scratch to go out or in,<br class="">And you’d soon open; leave on the kitchen floor<br class="">The marks of my drinking pan.</div><div class="">I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do<br class="">On the warm stone,<br class="">Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the night through<br class="">I lie alone.</div><div class="">But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet<br class="">Outside your window where firelight so often plays,<br class="">And where you sit to read–and I fear often grieving for me–<br class="">Every night your lamplight lies on my place.</div><div class="">You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard<br class="">To think of you ever dying<br class="">A little dog would get tired, living so long.<br class="">I hope than when you are lying</div><div class="">Under the ground like me your lives will appear<br class="">As good and joyful as mine.<br class="">No, dear, that’s too much hope: you are not so well cared for<br class="">As I have been.</div><div class="">And never have known the passionate undivided<br class="">Fidelities that I knew.<br class="">Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided. . . .<br class="">But to me you were true.</div><div class="">You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.<br class="">I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures<br class="">To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,</div><div class="">I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Robinson Jeffers</div></div></body></html>