Home
Fictions/Novels
Short Stories
Poems
Essays
Plays
Nonfictions
 
Authors
All Titles
 






In Association with Amazon.com

Home > Authors Index > Browse all available works of Katharine Lee Bates > Text of Heart Of A Dog

A poem by Katharine Lee Bates

The Heart Of A Dog

________________________________________________
Title:     The Heart Of A Dog
Author: Katharine Lee Bates [More Titles by Bates]

Where did they learn
The miracle of love,
These dogs that turn
From food and sleep at our light-whistled call,
Eager to fling
Their all
Of speed and grace into glad following?

Not the wolf pack
Taught savage instinct love,
For there to lack
The power to slay was to be hunger-slain;
Once down, a prey,
A stain
Of crimson on the snow, a tuft of gray.

Was it from us
They learned such loyal love
Magnanimous,
Meeting our injuries with trustful eyes?
Are we so true,
So wise,
So broken-hearted when love's day is through?

Where did they learn
The miracle of love?
Though beauty burn
In rainbow, foam and flame, these have not heard,
Nor trees and flowers,
That word.
Only our dogs would give their lives for ours.


[The end]
Katharine Lee Bates's poem: Heart Of A Dog

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN