Julie’s comment on
the previous post, about her miniature Schnauzer, Millie, made me thing of
dogs, and brought to mind this poem by Charles Kingsley:
When all the world
is young, lad,
And all the trees are green ;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen ;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away ;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown ;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down ;
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among :
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.
All I remembered
from it before I looked it up were the two phrases “every lass a queen” and
“every dog his day” – which shows I must have been of quite an optimistic cast
of mind when I read it as a teenager, because it feels like quite a depressing
poem taken all round. I think Kingsley
can’t have been all that old when he wrote it, because my mother’s nearly
ninety and, though she’s frail and forgetful, “spent and maimed” she is not,
and I haven’t noticed her do much creeping either. It all depends on your point
of view, I think.
My parents had a
dog they loved dearly, a Border Terrier called Josh. In the last years of his
life, my father went off into the wilderness somewhat and preferred the
simplicity and peace of living alone. My mother sent Josh with him so he
wouldn’t be lonely, and they lived together very contentedly in quietness and
seclusion.
When Josh died,
they both grieved for him, and I remember making a remembrance card to mark the
occasion, with a quotation from this poem by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Fear not, dear friend,
but freely live your days
Though lesser lives
should suffer. Such am I,
A lesser life, that what
is his of sky
Gladly would give for
you, and what of praise.
Step, without trouble,
down the sunlit ways.
We that have touched your
raiment, are made whole
From all the selfish
cankers of man's soul,
And we would see you
happy, dear, or die.
Therefore be brave, and
therefore, dear, be free;
Try all things
resolutely, till the best,
Out of all lesser
betters, you shall find;
And we, who have learned
greatness from you, we,
Your lovers, with a
still, contented mind,
See you well anchored in
some port of rest.
I think what I
picked out for the card was:
Fear not, dear friend, but freely live your days . . .
Step, without trouble, down the sunlit ways,
… we,
Your lovers, with a
still, contented mind,
See you well anchored in
some port of rest.
Thinking of that
little, muscled, bristly brown back trotting contentedly along the summer lanes
of rural England, under the trees and the wide blue sky with its white clouds,
it seemed fitting.
And thinking of
that death of a beloved animal reminds me of the death of the last of a litter
of kittens who grew up and grew old in my (now) husband’s house. By the time I
married him, he was on the last two – Toffee and Mackerel. We lived then in a
house with a slate-flagged kitchen floor, complete with underfloor heating. At
great expense Toffee, having lost the ability to leap up onto sunny
windowsills, spent his last days stretching luxuriously on the warm slates as
we ran the heating day and night for his benefit!
Mackerel was the
last to go. Toffee in the end was euthanased at the vet, but Mackerel died at
home.
She spent her last days in the long, narrow utility room at the back of
the kitchen, in a quiet space under the counter next to the washing machine,
lying on a pile of our laundry waiting to be washed. We left it there for her,
because I think she probably found the smell of us comforting. She just stayed
there, quietly, until her last evening. Then she moved further along the
corridor of that room to the lavatory at the end, where she went into the
secluded space behind the door.
We were out that
evening, but our lodgers called us to come home, worried about her because she
had begun to have small convulsions. While the Badger was calling the vet to
arrange to take her there, I sat with her. The moment she died was memorable.
In my mind arose the words, “Ah! That’s better!” in a happy expression of
relief, and in my mind’s eye I saw a liquid golden bubble (like the stuff they
put in lava lamps, but gold) floating upwards and free.
Yesterday in our
household we were talking about death, and how it should be as natural and
simple as we can manage to make it, not feared or evaded, not dreaded or
protracted. Death is part of life. Carlos Castenada in his (very odd) novels
featuring the Native American character Don Juan, described death as always
sitting/walking/standing very near you, somewhere to your left just out of
sight. And one day he will tap on your shoulder – “Time to go.”
Which reminds me
of yet another poem . . . in my commonplace book . . . roots around for it . . . here it is!
It’s by Virgil.
From the Aeneid? Just a short snatch:
Here’s Death,
twitching my ear:
“Live,” he says,
“for I’m coming.”
Quite right, too.
So in the meantime, may every dog have his day, and every living soul have his
or her time in the sun. Let us live simply, in slowness, lowliness and
littleness finding contentment and peace. Let us take the time to watch the
sparrows in the greengage tree, and love the nip in the air that comes with the
autumn, taste with amazement the flavor of ripe peaches, smell the rose that
rambles over the garden arch. For where is there like Earth? – and what a chance
we have been given, to explore this wonder, this marvel, this fullness of life.
Petraichor (say it Petra-eye-core) – a word for the scent arising from rain falling new on dry
earth. It releases the aroma of whatever is there. I have heard that in India
it’s a feature of the Monsoon beginning – people where the rain has not yet
arrived know it is coming when the air fills with the fragrance of spices as
the rain begins to fall in the country nearby.
Petraichor is a
composite of two Greek words: πέτρα petra, meaning
"stone", and ἰχώρ īchōr, the
fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology.
Of course the
fragrance released speaks – loudly – of what is there on the earth. Spices, in
India. In a garden, the green scent of plants and the perfume of flowers. And in some places the telling aroma of dog
poo and particulate dust from exhaust fumes. As Shakespeare said, “Thou earth,
thou – speak!” And so it does. In the end, what we put in returns to us. Sometimes
quite quickly.
