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Lord Byron
 1808 | Lord Byron, Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog [offsite ebook] in Vol 1 of Poetry in The Works of Lord Bryon, edited by E.H. Coleridge (London, 1903; Digitized by Google, 2007).
WHEN some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below;
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been:
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master's own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonour'd falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth:
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
Oh man ! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power,
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust !
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thce blush disgust, for shame.
Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on—it honours none you wish to mourn:
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise,
I never knew but one, and here he lies.
Newstead Abbey, Oct. 80, 1808.
[A prose inscription precedes the verses—]
Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.
Courage without Ferocity,
This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
If inscribed over human ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a Dog,
Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,
And died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808.
1821 | Lord Byron, Cain [offsite ebook], in Vol 5 of Poetry in The Works of Lord Bryon, edited by E.H. Coleridge (London, 1903; Digitized by Google, 2007).
 Cain. But animals—
Did they, too, eat of it, that they must die?…
Alas, the wretches !
They too must share my sire's fate, like his sons
Like them, too without having shared the apple.
(Lord Byron, Cain, Act II, Scene II [offsite ebook])
Abel (kneeling). Oh, brother, pray. Jehovah's wroth with thee.
Cain. Why so ?
Abel. Thy fruits are scattered on the earth.
Cain. From earth they came, to earth let them return;
Their seed will bear fresh fruit there ere the summer
Thy burnt flesh-offering prospers better: see
How Heaven licks up the flames, when thick with blood!…
I will build no more altars, Nor suffer any—
Abel. (rising). Cain ! what meanest thou ?
Cain. To cast down yon vile flatterer of the clouds,
The smoky harbinger of thy dull prayers—
Thine altar, with its blood of lambs and kids,
Which fed on milk, to be destroyed in blood.
Abel (opposing him).
Thou shall not:…add not impious works to impious
Words ! let that altar stand…'tis hallowed now
By the immortal pleasure of Jehovah,
In his acceptance of the victims.
Cain. His pleasure ! what was his high pleasure in
The fumes of scorching flesh and smoking blood,
To the pain of the bleating mothers, which
Still yearn for their dead offspring ? or the pangs
Of the sad ignorant victims underneath
Thy pious knife ? Give way ! this bloody record.
(Lord Byron, Cain, Act III, Scene I [offsite ebook])
1823 | Lord Byron, Don Juan [offsite ebook] in The Poetical Works of Lord Bryon, (London & New York, 1879).
And agling too, that solitary vice,
Whatever Izaak Walton sings or says:
The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb in his gullet
Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it. *
(Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto VIII, "On Angling" [offsite ebook])
*. It would have taught him humanity at least. This sentimental savage, whom it is a ode to quote (amongst the novelists) to show their sympathy for innocent sports and old songs, teaches how to sew up frogs, and greak thier legs by way of experiement, in addition to the art of angling, the cruelest, the coldest, and the stupidest of pretended sports.… No angler can be a good man.
 Transcriber's Notes
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