by Robinson Jeffers
Maybe I hate this poem because it wrecks me.
Because it’s too real.
Because I’ve sent it to too many.
And it slipped into so many hearts.
It’s called The House Dog’s Grave, and yeah, it’s about a dead bulldog named Haig.
But really, it’s about everything we lose and everything we never say.
It’s about loyalty—the kind you can’t fake.
The kind that lies by your fire, then under your window.
I don’t care how tough you are.
This one gets you.
I read it and every dog I’ve ever loved shows up.
Every quiet goodbye I didn’t know was the last.
Every empty bowl, scratch on the door, spot by the fire—
they’re not just gone. They echo.
Jeffers wasn’t writing this just for his dog.
He was writing it for us.
The ones who live too long, think too much, and rarely love as simply as a dog does.
This poem is a mirror I don’t like to look into.
But I keep coming back.
Because deep down, we all want to be remembered like that.
Unconditionally. Unapologetically and forever yours.
The House Dog’s Grave (Haig, an Englishbulldog)
I’ve changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there.
So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you’d soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.
I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the night through
I lie alone.
But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read–and I fear often grieving for me–
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.
You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope than when you are lying
Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.
No, dear, that’s too much hope: you are not so well cared for
As I have been.
And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided. . . .
But to me you were true.
You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.
Robinson Jeffers, 1941
