  HE was only a dog, and a mongrel at that, And worthless and troublesome, lazy and fat,— Was Wag, who died yesterday night; Yet now that his barking forever is o’er, And his caudal appendage can waggle no more, His elegy I will indite. ’Twas seldom authority mastered his will; He always was noisy when bid to be still; He slumbered while danger was near; He ran after chickens against all command; When ordered to “sick” he would heedlessly stand; His principal passion was fear. From morning till night he would dig in the ground To get at a rabbit, but, when it was found, But there was one duty he never did shun, From that naught could drive him, to that he would run: Wag never neglected his meals. The tax that I paid the police on his poll, A dollar a year, I begrudged in my soul, For Wag I thought dear at a cent; And once, in my hardness, I gloomily said, “I wish that the no-account puppy were dead!” But now he is dead, I repent. Wag came from Kentucky, a waif, bundled up And packed in a basket, a charity pup,— In pity we warmed him and fed; The only return that his nature could give For preserving his life, was serenely to live, Content with his board and his bed. He was kind to the dogs upon Tusculum Hill; He followed them all with fraternal good will, From coach dog to commonest cur; He was grateful to people who treated him right, And for his young mistress he even would fight, But not lose his dinner for her. I miss his black body curled up and asleep, I miss his contortions, his bark, and his leap, And the sound of his gnawing at bones; The very same night that the Pope died at Rome, Poor Wag, all alone, in the wash-house at home, Yielded up his last shivering moans. And when to the children, next morning, I said, As they sat at the table, “Yes, Wag—he is dead,” There was not a dry eye in the room; And Auntie began, with remorse, to recall How lately she’d driven deceased from the hall, With scoldings and blows of a broom. Now Wag is asleep near an apple-tree old, And a dog-rose shall blossom above his dear mold, And there shall a tablet be set; For though but a dog, and a mongrel at that, And worthless, and idle, and lazy, and fat,— Poor Wag was our dog, and a pet. |
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