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(Being a posthumous collaboration with the late Oliver Goldsmith upon The Death of a Mad Dog)
Good people all, of every sort, give ear unto my song,
And if you find it wondrous short, it cannot hold you long.
In Sisar Lane there lived a man of whom the world might say,
That still a godly race he ran when mad dogs he did flay.
So good folks all, since life is short, lend two ears to my song,
And if you find it wondrous sport, I pray life holds you long.
&
Down the lane in the woods in the forest of streams,
Near the canyon of stones in the valley of dreams;
Round the halcyon homes in the cool sober morn,
The mad dogs of Sisar lie sullen, forlorn.
Full purblind of color, benighted of soul,
From each knoll and hillock fell rheumy eyes roll;
Sore, mangy and rabid, unkempt and unshorn,
The mad dogs of Sisar in unison mourn:
No scent for sad nostrils, no movement or sound,
Foments eye or ear all the still valley round;
No canine adrenalin stirs in the blood,
No fevered heart quickens, its vessels to flood.
Thus behind every hedge now, aback every fence,
Each nerve ending crouches to serve every sense;
For want of an instrument, absent so long,
Their taut cords lie straining to break into song:
To sing out in chorus, to bay out of tune,
To wail loud and howl long as not for the moon;
To bristle, and brazen, and cry out Beware!
…But nothing, O nothing, and so they all stare.
Scarce blinking they narrow their sore-hooded eyes,
While moist nostrils quiver for scent of the prize;
One sound to a pricked ear could alter the dawn!
…But nothing, O nothing, and so they all yawn:
Oh, what, for a dog, could be worse than this void
So they, all the madder, their spirits alloyed,
Seek to fill it—with voice—aye, with dog tongue in cheek.
(Ah, their masters have masterfully taught them to speak):
“Lord, night is the precinct of creatures that prowl:
The coon, the coyote, and the cat-snatching owl
Whose master, the moon, casts a spell over voles,
Bewitching earth’s vermin to err from their holes
—When it’s dank! and the black forest glistens with dew;
When the stones in the canyon turn stone-cold and blue;
When it’s so deathly silent, Lord, lonely—and dark!—
That a dog could go mad for good reason to bark!
“But soon will come children, small children with books,
Wearing fresh-scented garments and small, frightened looks;
Sweet milking cows, wee lambs and tender young goats,
All pastured and pampered and plumped up with oats;
Then horses, tall horses, wild eyes full of pride,
Shall clatter by, sweating, quite ripe for the ride,
Neath mean-booted masters so beastly unkempt,
They warrant disasters—our utmost contempt!
“Then we’ll curl back our upper lips, bristle our hair,
Flash snowy-white canines and balefully glare;
Lunge forth—like we’re mad—and, of course, bark to rule,
Snarl once fiercely, snap twice, and openly drool!
“But woe! to those tramps of the forest and streams;
Those vulgars who romp through the valley of dreams;
Those sly cunning gypsies who hide our best bones,
In the bone-crushing maze of the canyon of stones;
Who taunt us and tease us, alone and in packs
—With the sun and the moon—and the wind on their backs!
Who, Gr-r-r-r! so wildly, wantonly—Lord, freely roam,
They tempt us each madly to give up our home;
Who bring out the beast, aye, the worst in us all,
Then double-dog dare us to rise to their call,
Which makes us so furious, jealous—and sad—
It hurries us on up to hellishly mad!
“So we’re saving the best of our worst for the last,
For the renegade outcasts disgracing our caste
The stray dogs of Sisar!—who stop at our gates,
And laugh in our faces—and mock at our fates!
Oh, the cheek and the nerve! Oh, the crust and the gall!
Oh, the bluster and swagger—the brass of it all!
To think they’d insult us—on our cherished path;
Yes, they shall inherit our innermost wrath!
“So we’ll froth and we’ll rage to rekindle our fire,
And boil up a broth of our uttermost ire;
Then serve it up choking hot, foaming with hate
—Belly up, curséd stray dogs—and hold out your plate!…
“(Sigh) But now there is only the mist and the dawn,
No lean bone our outrage can fast seize upon;
Lord, now there is nothing—our senses run wild!
O Lord Dog in Heaven, pray send us—a child!”
The sound when soft earth meets a tender young sole,
A sane ear counts less than a crumb in Life’s bowl;
To the mad dogs of Sisar who lust after meat,
Such heard bones are sweeter—far sweeter than meat!
The chill, ragged ear of a skeletal whelp,
Keens first the soft footfall and fathers a yelp.
As surely the growth of the pine tree is slow,
How swiftly the “Wild Barking Forest” does grow!
Each mutt and each purebred, each lapdog and cur,
Well echoes his neighbors and then ups the slur;
Every pup, every graybeard, each deerhound and bitch,
Then doubles the ante—quadruples the pitch.
In a flash they are ten, in a flash now a score,
Like thunderclaps fast on Life’s heels now they roar;
Down the lane, through the woods, through the forest of streams,
Till the stone canyon echoes, the valley blasphemes.
As the hoary mist swirls, giving way to the sun,
To the aid of old instincts wild spirits swift run
“—Surround the intruder! there, tighten the net!
Close ranks! cry in chorus!—the gauntlet is set.”
And into the jaws now, the maws deep and wide,
The guilty, the suspect—the innocent—stride.
Yea, into the jaws of the beastly bastille,
Whose laws grant no mercy, no right of appeal.
O child of your mother, before it’s too late,
Turn back on your dear heels, turn now—at the gate!
But the footstep of childhood, so carefree and bold,
Has already fallen, as has been foretold.
And too now has risen the cry that would bode,
Of the fate that awaits those who take to the road:
—crASH! (God in Heaven! ) —crASH! (God on High!)
—kaBOOM! how the howling mad thunderclaps fly
—Like cannonballs!—loosed in some hellish tirade,
To befall on each head in a cruel cannonade;
To ring every anvil inside every ear
“—This is our dogmain! You have no business here!”
All wayfarers, passersby, each in due course,
On the wings of a prayer, and on foot, wheel and horse,
Now enters this day, as all days of each year,
The cold “Aisle of Torment,” the “Tunnel of Fear.”
(Sweet child, you are borne in the teeth of the storm
May God’s mercy bless you, your bruised spirit warm;
For your lamb, oh, your precious lamb follows your rule,
And bleats in your footsteps so far from the school.)
In loud, scolding gusts now of buffeting jeers,
God’s two tender lambs, midst a tempest of sneers,
At once now are shaken—and blasted in vain—
By a cold scoffing blizzard, and blown down the lane.
Child after child is, as dear mother grieves,
Sucked up in the maelstrom like sere autumn leaves
(Their senses now swirling and swishing like spume)
And flung through the door of the lone schoolhouse room.
“O brethren, it kindles and gladdens the heart,
When the cold morning gets such a heartwarming start:
Each child shivered well (the fear coming soon)
And comrades—the sun is still well clear of noon!
If we hone every sinew, commit every sense,
To our homes’, and our bones’, and our masters’ defence;
If we heighten our vigilance, tighten our guard,
We could frighten the spots off a camelopard!
“’Cause we’re canines, fa-famously loyal and proud
To be so canis fa-miliarisly LOUD!
With a do re mi fa-fa-fa so la ti do,
There’s no telling how fa-fa-far we could go!
Oh, surely the crown of the great Mountain King,
Shall resound with a bright tintinnabulous ring
O Brothers! O Sisters! together now—SING!
Oh, isn’t “the Gauntlet” a fabulous thing?”
And the strains of a prelude sung down in Dog Hell,
On the page of the valley commences to swell;
From the lines of the gauntlet, its unwitting staves,
In soaring crescendos, cacophanous waves,
Notes strident and sour in a clamor arise,
Fermenting sweet chords in fair Euphony’s skies;
Till each mutt and mongrel, mad-flushed with the sound,
Sings maudlinly—LOUDER!—full drunk to a hound.
“O curs bearing furs, it occurs and bestirs
That the slurs one incurs Man unjustly infers;
Who confers, hims and hers—without bias—concurs,
And demurs that man errs when he thusly avers.
Oh, we’re madder than hatters and ten dancing bears,
Yes we’re madder than platters of mad Marching hares;
We’re barmy and scatterbrained, shattered and crazed,
Most manic and moonstruck—and downright amazed!
“Yes, we’re mad because it’s a dog’s life we lead,
No matter the pedigreed papers or breed;
Yes, friends, we are mad, let us gnaw on the truth:
We’re so mad about life that we’d change not a tooth!
If we thunder and threaten and bluster and curse;
Malignly, molestingly muster up worse;
It’s merely our method to right every wrong
—To bite every bugbear of life—with a song.
So we sing for the rapturous joy we derive,
To be runts in the litter of life who survive;
To be young—and in love! to be old—and alive!
One sweet drop of honey, one small part the hive.
“Such bliss! to be born in this space and this time,
When the earth’s morning glory is hoary with rhyme;
To be blessed with the most perfect means to rejoice:
A prodigal, protestant—dogmatic voice!
“So we’ll sing for the postman, his bag full of bills,
Who brings to our masters all manner of ills,
Which hastens the doctor, his head full of chills,
Who fevers our masters’ good manors with pills.
We’ll sing for the sound of the engine that drives
Us so giddy with shivers and goosefleshy hives;
And howl at the courier when he arrives;
And at Christmas—O joy!—the Courier and Ives.
“Aye, sing to the spokes of the bicycle wheels,
Bearing city-soft yokels’ sweet bitable heels;
And croon to the yokes chafing slowpoking mules,
Provoking our outspoken bellows and pules.
We’re an ocean of protest, a sea of dissent,
We’re a storm of denial and wild argument;
O hurri-canines, with a hiss-s-s-s and a roar,
Let your breakers uprise now—and crash LOUD ashore!”
Like lambs to the slaughterhouse one after one,
Each martyr, each victim sore suffers his run;
With each swelling wave, oh, lest he be outdone,
So too through the morning uprises the sun:
High up over Sisar, up over the moon,
On up to his zenith, and over high noon;
Till he, like the shorn lambs in surfeited swoon,
Sinks slowly to west on the down side of noon.
And as each lamb is basted, chewed up with a shout,
His meekness is tasted, his dry bones spit out;
Now louder, now coarser, now shriller the cry,
Now wilder, now chiller, now s-l-o-o-o-wer to die!
And so on and on through the late afternoon;
All creatures the spirit foretold would come soon
Have come—run and gone!—like the late morning sun;
All players—that is, all wretches…but one.
When down from the canyon, the canyon of stones,
And into the gauntlet all hair, skin and bones;
As if all of life were a stage for his play,
Now flounces, now gambols, now frolics—the stray!
Each muttzo-soprano, high alto and bass,
Contralto and baritone—weary of face,
Raw-throated, tongue-tattered, and barely survived,
By one smell and sight of—the beast!—is revived.
And, oh! how the chorus—as one—does rejoice,
Aye, the devil himself must have leased them his voice;
So poisonous, venomous—loud!—is the roar,
That all—all was nothing!—that thus went before.
So wondrous the tempest and ferment that spread,
Full many an angel peered down from his bed;
And, since waking the dead was their greatest of fears,
They quickly stuffed cloudlets in all the dead’s ears.
Whilst down in the nether bowels deep in the earth,
Some satanic creature was writhing in mirth;
Peering up from the flames through the hot mud and miles,
Dark-countenanced , beamed the most fiendish of smiles.…
But what of the shepherds who covet the fleece,
In their hellbegon homes near the mountains of peace;
When they were awarded their sheepskins and shears,
Was no one—not one of them—handed out ears?
In the halls of the masters they hear not a hound,
For the walls of dead spirits deign scarcely a sound;
No glimpse of the tumult through windows may pass,
Save wondrous! the sunset through rose-colored glass;
No hint of the carnage, no whisper of sin,
No sense of injustice seeps once through their skin;
No tears of compassion may weep from the heart,
For long since a dead thing pretends to the part.
In the weary day’s glow now the old bearded sun,
Betakes to his west bed, the battle’s most won.”
“No skirmish was lost, sir! no enemy missed!”
“Dog soldiers—stand easy!… the gauntlet’s dismissed.”
And now all is peaceful, now all is serene,
That short tears ago was so blindly obscene;
The angels quick thinking spared waking the dead,
And Satan, disgusted, betook him to bed.
Down the lane in the woods in the forest of streams,
Near the canyon of stones in the valley of dreams;
Round the halcyon homefires as evening draws nigh,
The mad gods of Sisar sip caffeine, and sigh.
Though it’s writ that the sane with the sun shall repose,
Full many a wide eye within will not close.
And the mad dogs of Sisar? sore glad to be born,
Turn round once, turn round twice, and lie down till morn.
It is said that this Earth’s canine troubles began,
When a drooling tongue first licked the heartstrings of Man.
So well-hearing people, give ear to my song:
Be you ever in Sisar Lane, ever so long,
Take some good bottled courage, take an all-purpose prayer,
Take your turn in the gauntlet (too late to take care).
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