Littell's Living Age/Volume 159/Issue 2050/Dandie's Last Journey

by Anna H. Drury

Dandie Speaks

Of my travels do you ask me? Do you seriously task me
To rub up my geography, and tell where I have been?
Would it really make you merrier, if a Dandie Dinmont terrier
Were to make your muzzles water with the wonders he has seen?

I think, in spite of cavils, a well-bred dog who travels
May prove a better traveller than some who hold him cheap;
If he takes discomfort coolly, responds to kindness duly,
And when there’s nothing else to do goes quietly to sleep.

By railway and by steamer was I thus a peaceful dreamer,
Only waking when they summoned me in places new and strange.
No matter where they took me, my courage ne’er forsook me;
I knew my loved ones guarded me, and love can never change!

Oh, the memories that waken of the rambles we have taken
Through cornfields, wood, and meadow, knee-deep in heath and fern!
How we roamed about together, in the joyous summer weather
Of those glad days I dream about - that never can return!

But you ask me, half in pity, how I liked that grand old city,
So full of all the wonders that charm the good and wise;
And a joy you never tasted you think was sadly wasted
On a dog that has but instinct, his affection, and his eyes.

Yet when you see me dreaming, I see the sunlight gleaming
Where the springtide glows like summer and the winter smiles like spring;
Where the moonbeams fall so whitely, where the fountains play so brightly,
And everywhere, for praise or prayer, you hear the church-bells ring.

But that which you call history is to both of us a mystery:
I do not know the things that were - you know not what will be;
And if to you be given more wondrous powers from Heaven,
You do not know what earth can show, and oft has shown to me.

You cannot hear the voices at which my heart rejoices -
The whispers of creation and of those who sang its birth;
You little think how often, some creature’s lot to soften,
We see the white-robed messengers come down upon the earth!

If to us no mystic pages may unroll the lore of ages,
Yet nature’s gracious teaching is for us as well as you;
And I saw Rome’s truest glory, beyond all song or story,
Where her sunset showed its crimson - her sky its deep, dark blue.

I have trod the wide Campagna (the Piazza, too, di Spagna),
In the fair Borghese Gardens I have scampered at my will;
I have drunk of Trevi’s fountain, I have seen Socrate’s mountain,
And watched St. Peter’s throned in light, from the famed Pincian Hill.

But when your eyes are closing, and your stiff limbs need reposing,
What suits you best are home and rest; and those I’ve found once more;
And the tender touch of greeting and the joy of happy meeting
Add brightness to the memory of all that went before.

Yes, my travels now are ending and my sun is fast descending;
But those I love are near me, and how can I repine?
May all who read my verses be as rich in friends and nurses,
And find their own last journey end as peacefully as mine!

Good Words.

Anna H. Drury