Epitaph to a Dog - Poems | Academy of American Poets Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization. browse poems & poets sign up to receive a new poem-a-day in your inbox sign up poem About this poet George Gordon Byron was born on January 22, 1788, in Aberdeen, Scotland, and inherited his family's English title at the age of ten, becoming Baron Byron of Rochdale. Abandoned by his father at an early age and resentful of his mother, who he blamed for his being born with a deformed foot, Byron isolated himself during his youth and was deeply unhappy.

Though he was the heir to an idyllic estate, the property was run down and his family had no assets with which to care for it. As a teenager, Byron discovered that he was attracted to men as well as women, which made him all the more remote and secretive. He studied at Aberdeen Grammar School and then Trinity College in Cambridge. During this time Byron collected and published his first volumes of poetry. The first, published anonymously and titled Fugitive Pieces, was printed in 1806 and contained a miscellany of poems, some of which were written when Byron was only fourteen. As a whole, the collection was considered obscene, in part because it ridiculed specific teachers by name, and in part because it contained frank, erotic verses. At the request of a friend, Byron recalled and burned all but four copies of the book, then immediately began compiling a revised version—though it was not published during his lifetime. The next year, however, Byron published his second collection, Hours of Idleness, which contained many of his early poems, as well as significant additions, including poems addressed to John Edelston, a younger boy whom Byron had befriended and deeply loved. By Byron's twentieth birthday, he faced overwhelming debt.

Though his second collection received an initially favorable response, a disturbingly negative review was printed in January of 1808, followed by even more scathing criticism a few months later. His response was a satire, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, which received mixed attention. Publicly humiliated and with nowhere else to turn, Byron set out on a tour of the Mediterranean, traveling with a friend to Portugal, Spain, Albania, Turkey, and finally Athens. Enjoying his new-found sexual freedom, Byron decided to stay in Greece after his friend returned to England, studying the language and working on a poem loosely based on his adventures. Inspired by the culture and climate around him, he later wrote to his sister, "If I am a poet ... the air of Greece has made me one." Byron returned to England in the summer of 1811 having completed the opening cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, a poem which tells the story of a world-weary young man looking for meaning in the world. When the first two cantos were published in March of 1812, the expensive first printing sold out in three days.

Byron reportedly said, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous." His fame, however, was among the aristocratic intellectual class, at a time when only cultivated people read and discussed literature. The significant rise in a middle-class reading public, and with it the dominance of the novel, was still a few years away. At 24, Byron was invited to the homes of the most prestigious families and received hundreds of fan letters, many of them asking for the remaining cantos of his great poem—which eventually appeared in 1818. An outspoken politician in the House of Lords, Byron used his popularity for public good, speaking in favor of workers' rights and social reform. He also continued to publish romantic tales in verse. His personal life, however, remained rocky. He was married and divorced, his wife Anne Isabella Milbanke having accused him of everything from incest to sodomy. A number of love affairs also followed, including one with Claire Clairmont, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley <’s sister-in-law. By 1816, Byron was afraid for his life, warned that a crowd might lynch him if he were seen in public.

Forced to flee England, Byron settled in Italy and began writing his masterpiece, Don Juan, an epic-satire novel-in-verse loosely based on a legendary hero. He also spent much of his time engaged in the Greek fight for independence and planned to join a battle against a Turkish-held fortress when he fell ill, becoming increasingly sick with persistent colds and fevers. When he died on April 19, 1824, at the age of 36, Don Juan was yet to be finished, though 17 cantos had been written. A memoir, which also hadn't been published, was burned by Byron's friends who were either afraid of being implicated in scandal or protective of his reputation. Today, Byron's Don Juan is considered one of the greatest long poems in English written since John Milton’ s Paradise Lost. The Byronic hero, characterized by passion, talent, and rebellion, pervades Byron's work and greatly influenced the work of later Romantic poets . YKC 2016 dog #2 Jeopardy Template 100 What is English Springer Spaniel named Millie? Said to be the most popular "First Dog" in history was Barbara Bush's dog. What was its name & breed?

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400 Lord Byron - Phantis Lord Byron Jump to: navigation , search Lord Byron on a Greek commemorative stamp George Gordon (Noel) Byron, 6th Baron Byron ( January 22 , 1788 – April 19 , 1824 ) was an English poet and leading figure in Romanticism. Among his best-known works are the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. The latter remained incomplete on his death. Byron's fame rests not only on his writings, but also on his life, which featured extravagant living, numerous love affairs, debts, separation, allegations of incest and bisexuality and an eventual death from fever after he travelled to fight on the Greek side in the Greek War of Independence . He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." Byron was also the father of Ada Lovelace. Contents 6 External links Life Byron was born in London, the son of Captain John "Mad Jack" Byron and of John's second wife Lady Catherine Gordon, heiress of Gight, Aberdeenshire.

His paternal grandfather was Vice-Admiral John "Foulweather Jack" Byron, who had circumnavigated the globe. He was also the grand-nephew of William Byron, 5th Baron Byron, known as "the Wicked Lord". From his birth he suffered from a malformation of the feet, causing a slight lameness, which was a cause of lifelong misery to him, aggravated by the knowledge that with proper care it might have been cured. He was christened George Gordon after his maternal grandfather, George Gordon, 12th Laird of Gight, a descendant of James I. This grandfather committed suicide in 1779. Byron's mother Catherine had to sell her land and title to pay her father's debts. John Byron may have married Catherine for her money and, after squandering it, deserted her. Byron's parents separated before his birth.

Lady Catherine moved back to Scotland shortly afterwards, where she raised her son in Aberdeen until May 21 , 1798 , when the death of his great-uncle made him the sixth Baron Byron, inheriting Newstead Abbey, rented to Henry Edward Yelverton, 19th Baron Grey de Ruthyn during Byron's adolescence. He received his formal education at the Grammar School in Aberdeen. In 1801 he was sent to Harrow, where he remained until 1805, when he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge. Some early verses which he had published in 1806 were suppressed. They were followed in 1807 by Hours of Idleness, which was savagely attacked in the Edinburgh Review. In reply he sent forth English Bards and Scotch Reviewers ( 1809 ), which created considerable stir and shortly went through 5 editions. In 1809 he left England, and passing through Spain, went to Greece. During his absence, which extended over two years, he wrote the first two cantos of Childe Harold, which were published after his return in 1812 , and were received with acclamation.

In his own words, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous." He followed up his success with some short poems, The Corsair, Lara, etc. About the same time began his intimacy with his future biographer, Thomas Moore. He eventually took his seat at the House of Lords in 1811 , and made his first speech there on February 27 , 1812 . He was a strong advocate of social reform, and was particularly noted as one of the few Parliamentary defenders of the Luddites. He was also a defender of Roman Catholics. Byron was inspired to write political poems such as "Song for the Luddites" ( 1816 ) and "The Landlords' Interest" ( 1823 ). Examples of poems where he attacked his political opponents include "Wellington: The Best of the Cut-Throats" ( 1819 ) and "The Intellectual Eunuch Castlereagh" ( 1818 ). In 1812, Byron embarked on a well-publicised affair with Lady Caroline Lamb.

Rumors suggest around this period he also fell in love with a choir boy, though scholars dispute the veracity and relevance of this. For his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, he wrote many passionate poems. She had been separated from her husband since 1811 when she gave birth on April 15 , 1814 to a daughter, Medora. Byron's joy over the birth seems to substantiate the rumors of an incestuous relationship. Byron married Anne Isabella Milbanke ("Annabella"), a cousin of the Lady Caroline, who had refused him in the previous year. They married at Seaham Hall, County Durham on January 2 , 1815 . Later, when Annabella's mother died, her will stipulated that her beneficiaries must take her family name in order to inherit. Lord Byron added it and became George Gordon Noel Byron in 1822. The marriage proved unhappy. He treated her poorly and showed disappointment at the birth of a daughter (Augusta Ada), rather than a son. On January 16 , 1816 , Lady Byron left George, taking Ada with her. On April 21 , Byron signed the Deed of Separation.

After this break-up of his domestic life, Byron again left England, as it turned out, for ever. Byron passed through Belgium and up the Rhine; in the summer of 1816 Lord Byron and his personal physician, John William Polidori settled in Switzerland, at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva. There he became friends with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Shelley's wife-to-be Mary Godwin. He was also joined by Mary's step-sister, Claire Clairmont, with whom he had had an affair in London. Byron initially refused to have anything to do with Claire, and would only agree to remain in her presence with the Shelleys, who eventually persuaded Byron to accept and provide for Allegra, the child she bore him in January 1817 . At the Villa Diodati, kept indoors by the "incessant rain" of that "wet, ungenial summer", over three days in June the five turned to reading fantastical stories, including "Fantasmagoriana" (in the French edition), and then devising their own tales.

Mary Shelley produced what would become Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus and Polidori was inspired by a fragmentary story of Byron's to produce The Vampyre, the progenitor of the romantic vampire genre. Byron's story fragment was published as a postscript to Mazeppa; he also wrote the third canto of Childe Harold. Byron wintered in Venice, where he formed a connection with Jane Clairmont, the daughter of William Godwin's second wife. In 1817 he was in Rome, whence returning to Venice he wrote the fourth canto of Childe Harold. About the same time he sold Newstead and published Manfred, Cain, and The Deformed Transformed. The first five cantos of Don Juan were written between 1818 and 1820 , during which period he made the acquaintance of the Countess Guiccioli, whom he persuaded to leave her husband. It was about this time that he received a visit from Moore, to whom he confided his MS. autobiography, which Moore, in the exercise of the discretion left to him, burned in 1824 . While living in Venice helped to compile an Armenian grammar textbook and translated two of St.

Paul's epistles into English. His next move was to Ravenna, where he wrote much, chiefly dramas, including Marino Faliero. In 1821 - 22 he finished cantos 6-12 of Don Juan at Pisa, and in the same year he joined with Leigh Hunt in starting a short-lived newspaper, The Liberal, in the first number of which appeared The Vision of Judgment. His last Italian home was Genoa, where he was still accompanied by the Countess, and where he lived until 1823 , when he offered himself as an ally to the Greek insurgents. By 1823 Byron had grown bored with his life in Genoa with his mistress, the Contessa Guiccioli. When the representatives of the movement for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire contacted him to ask for his support, he accepted. On July 16 , Byron left Genoa on the Hercules, arriving at Kefalonia in the Ionian Islands on August 2 .

He spent £4000 of his own money to refit the Greek fleet, then sailed for Messolonghi in western Greece, arriving on December 29 to join Prince Alexandros Mavrokordatos , leader of the Greek rebel forces. In Kefalonia he met a Greek boy, Loukas Chalandritsanos, whom he employed as a page and with whom he developed an emotional relationship. Mavrokordatos and Byron planned to attack the Turkish-held fortress of Lepanto , at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth . Byron employed a fire-master to prepare artillery and took part of the rebel army under his own command and pay, despite his lack of military experience. But before the expedition could sail, on February 15 1824 , he fell ill, and the usual remedy of bleeding weakened him further. He made a partial recovery, but in early April he caught a violent cold which the bleeding -- insisted on by his doctors -- aggravated. The cold became a violent fever, and he died on April 19 . The Greeks mourned Lord Byron deeply, and he became a national hero.

Vyron, the Greek form of "Byron", continues in popularity as a masculine name in Greece, and a suburb of Athens is called Vironas in his honour. His body was embalmed and his heart buried under a tree in Messolonghi . His remains were sent to England for burial in Westminster Abbey, but the Abbey refused. He is buried at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottingham. At her request, Ada, the child he never knew, was buried next to him. In later years, the Abbey allowed a duplicate of a marble slab given by the King of Greece , which is laid directly above Byron's grave. In 1969 , 145 years after Byron's death, a memorial to him was finally placed in Westminster Abbey. Upon his death, the baronage passed to a cousin, George Anson Byron (1789-1868), a career military officer and Byron's polar opposite in temperament and lifestyle. Lord Byron, by all accounts, had a particularly attractive personality – one may say astonishingly so. He obtained a reputation as being unconventional, eccentric, flamboyant and controversial.

Many attribute some of Byron's extraordinary abilities to his affliction with bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic depression. Byron had a great fondness for animals, most famously for a Newfoundland dog named Boatswain; when Boatswain contracted rabies, Byron reportedly nursed him without any fear of becoming bitten and infected. Boatswain lies buried at Newstead Abbey and has a monument larger than his master's. The inscription, Byron's "Epitaph to a dog", has become one of his best-known works: NEAR this spot And died at Newstead Abbey Nov. 18, 1808. Byron also notably kept a bear while he was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge (reputedly out of resentment of Trinity rules forbidding pet dogs - he later suggested that the bear apply for a college fellowship). At other times in his life, Byron kept a fox, monkeys, a parrot, cats, an eagle, a crow, a falcon, peacocks, guinea hens, an Egyptian crane, a badger, geese, and a heron. Career Byron wrote prolifically.

[1] In 1833 his publisher, John Murray, released the complete works in 17 octavo volumes, including a life by Thomas Moore. His magnum opus, Don Juan, a poem spanning 17 cantos, ranks as one of the most important long poems published in England since Milton's Paradise Lost. Don Juan, Byron's masterpiece, often called the epic of its time, has roots deep in literary tradition and, although regarded by early Victorians as somewhat shocking, equally involves itself with its own contemporary world at all levels – social, political, literary and ideological. The Byronic hero pervades much of Byron's work. Scholars have traced the literary history of the Byronic hero from Milton, and many authors and artists of the Romantic movement show Byron's influence -- during the 19th century and beyond. The Byronic hero presents an idealised but flawed character whose attributes include: rebelling ultimately, acting in a self-destructive manner unsuccessful in love, usually the beloved is dead Byron After Death The re-founding of the Byron Society [2] in 1971 reflects the fascination that many people have for Byron and his work. This society has become very active, publishing a learned annual journal.

Today some 36 International Byron Societies function throughout the world, and an International Conference takes place annually. Hardly a year passes without a new book about the poet appearing. In the last 20 years two new feature films about him have screened, and a television play has been broadcast. Byron exercised a marked influence on Continental literature and art, and his reputation as poet is higher in many European countries than in England or America, although not as high as in his time. He has also appeared as a character in poular fiction, a testament to his influence. John Crowley's novel Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land (2005) involves the rediscovery of a lost manuscript by Lord Byron, as does Frederick Prokosch's The Missolonghi Manuscript (1968). Byron appears as a character in Tim Powers' The Stress of Her Regard (1989) and Walter Jon Williams' novella Wall, Stone Craft (1994), as also in Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004).

The Black Drama by Manly Wade Wellman (Weird Tales, 1938; Fearful Rock and Other Precarious Locales, 2001) involves the rediscovery and production of a lost play by Byron (from which Polidori's The Vampyre was plagiarised) by a man who purports to be a descendant of the poet. In 1997, Jonathan Firth, brother of famous actor Colin Firth, played Lord Byron in an episode of Highlander: The Series titled "The Modern Prometheus". Bibliography Crede Byron Crede Byron Lord Byron and Newstead Abbey "All men are intrinsical rascals ~ and I am only sorry that not being a dog I can't bite them." (Lord Byron) Byron's Menagerie From an early age, Byron had a noted fondness for animals, and his household - wherever he settled - always included a collection of creatures. Whilst a student at Cambridge, Byron was irked that university rules banned keeping a dog. With characteristic perversity, he installed a tame bear instead. There being no mention of bears in their statutes, the college authorities had no legal basis to complain.

In one of his letters, Byron cheekily suggests that his ursine friend "should sit for a fellowship". When Byron graduated, and took up residence in his ancestral home, the rambling, ruinous Newstead Abbey, the bear went with him. His predecessor at Newstead, the eccentric 5th baron Byron, also seems to have enjoyed unusual pets, for he is said to have kept a tame wolf at the Abbey. Along with Newstead, the poet inherited what must have been a descendant of this animal, a "wolf dog" named Lyon, which he described as "...A cur of mine...(half a wolf on the ï¿½sheï¿½ side) that doted on me at ten years old and very nearly ate me at twenty! He bit away the backside of my breeches and never would consent to any recognition in despite of all kinds of bones which I offered him". Charles Skinner Matthews, Byronï¿½s houseguest in 1809, reported that "Playing with the bear or teasing the wolf" was a regular amusement.

Byronï¿½s mother recorded that the food for the dog cost ï¿½20 a year (at a time when a housemaidï¿½s wages and lodging was only around ï¿½30 per annum). Despite its bad temper and expensive appetite, Byron evidently thought enough of Lyon to commission a painting of him by a Nottingham animal and sporting artist, and the picture can still be seen at Newstead today. The best known of Byronï¿½s animal companions is Boatswain, whose portrait is also displayed at the Abbey. Byron always refers to him as a Newfoundland, but according to animal historian Gerald Pendred, the ears, coat and head-shape of the handsome black and white dog shown in the picture suggest some husky blood. Certainly he was - like his master - a strong swimmer. A tenant farmer told that whilst by the Upper Lake at Newstead he sometimes saw the poet "get into the boat with his two noble Newfoundland dogs, row into the middle of the lake, then dropping the oars tumble over into the middle of the water.

The faithful animals would immediately follow, seize him by the coat collar, one on each side, and bear him away to land..." Perhaps the second dog was "Thunder". Mrs. Francis, a former servant at the Abbey, wrote that two rather battered brass collars still shown at Newstead were damaged through the dogsï¿½ scraps with Byronï¿½s bear. She recorded that Thunder "though the largest dog, was not so courageous, and could seldom be induced to face the bear". The same Mrs. Francis tells the sad tale of how Boatswain, being in the habit of following the postboy to Mansfield, was bitten by a rabid dog in the town and fell ill. Moore, Byronï¿½s biographer, writes how, as the dog foamed at the mouth, the grief stricken poet gently wiped away the slaver with his own hands. Despite his many debts, Byron commissioned an impressive marble monument for his canine friend, - the only piece of building Byron ever carried out at Newstead - and the dog was buried in a garden vault amongst the old Abbey ruins.

The carved epitaph celebrates "One who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, And all the virtues of Man without his vices..."ï¿½ When the American writer Washington Irving visited Newstead in Victorian times, he was greeted by "a memento of Lord Byron, a great black and white Newfoundland dog who accompanied his remains from Greece. He was descended from the famous Boatswain... a cherished inmate of the Abbey...honoured and caressed by every visitor". In Italy Byron acquired a bulldog called Moretto. Whilst at Livorno, when the close proximity of the Leigh Hunt household and its noisy pack of ill-disciplined offspring was beginning to jar on Byronï¿½s nerves, he hit on the novel method of keeping the kids out of his private rooms by training the dog to stand on the stairs and snarl at them.

During his courtship of Theresa Guccioli, Byron rented the upper floor of her husband, Count Guccioliï¿½s villa in Ravenna and proceeded to make himself at home by installing a menagerie of "ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon." When the poet Shelley visited the count a few month later, he was met on the staircase by "five peacocks, two guinea hens and an Egyptian crane". In 1819 Byron wrote happily to his friend Francis Hodgson, "I have got two monkeys and a fox - and two new mastiffs - Mutz is still in high old age. The monkeys are charming." Such was his weakness for animals that when his coach travelled from Pisa to Genoa in 1822, it did so with three cackling geese swinging from cages off the back. On being told that they were being fattened up for Michaelmas, he decided to rescue them from the oven.

On his departure for Greece, Byron placed the birds in the care of his Genovese banker, who wrote a bemused letter to Kinnaird, his London counterpart, after the poetï¿½s death, asking what was to be done with them. On Byronï¿½s departure to Greece in 1823 the entourage included his bulldog Moretto, and a Newfoundland, Lyon, whose enthusiastic devotion to his master proved him a latter-day Boatswain. By the time the party had reached Missolonghi, Byron was in precarious health, and disillusioned and depressed by the turbulent progress of the war. His only relief from the stress was to romp with Lyon for excercise - "Lyon, thou art an honest fellow, Lyon.

Thou art more faithful than men, Lyon; I trust thee more." The faithful Lyonï¿½s last duty was to accompany his masterï¿½s body home to England on the "Florida" Lady Byron, no animal lover, wrote superciliously of her estranged husband that "the reason why some tyrannical characters have been fond of animals and humane to them is because they have no exercise of reason and could not condemn the wickedness of their master." Perhaps the real reason was that in the unwavering loyalty and simple affection of his animals Byron found the non- judgemental love he craved, but rarely received, from his human relationships. Image: Portrait of Boatswain the Newfoundland ï¿½ 1998-2011 L J Webb Lord Byron Kerrybrook History - Archive - Lord Byron's Newfoundland Dog Boatswain Site last updated January 30, 2002 Lord Byron's Boatswain This is Boatswain (Oil on canvas Clifton Tomson 1808) -- a Newfoundland Dog imported from Canada through Poole Harbor, England.

He was purchased by Lord Byron, the English Romantic Poet, and was Byron's beloved pet for several years, until his untimely death after contracting rabies (yes, England once had rabies penetrate its shores). Notice how much Labrador (or Newfoundland) type has evolved through the nearly two hundred years since then. Boatswain appeared to have half-pricked ears and a significant amount of white. The coat seems similar to today's weather-resistant coat but, unlike today, there is a fair amount of feathering. The Otter tail is beginning to develop as well. Boatswain appears somewhat long in the loin, but certainly has leg underneath him, which is significant. Many Labrador breeders today believe that "true breed type" through the years never possessed that quality. However, a careful study of the early dogs of the breed from the original English kennels fails to support that assumption. CURRENT EVENTS A brief excerpt from Chris Wincek's book. A Poem to Boatswain, a Dog | All Creatures LARGE & small All Creatures LARGE & small are deposited the Remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.

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 in Newfoundland May 1803 and died at Newstead Nov. 18th, 1808. 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: The romantic painting, right, by Ford Madox Brown was completed long after the deaths of both Byron and Boatswain. Inspired by Byron’s semi-autobiographical poem The Dream (1816), it shows Byron with his first lover, Mary Chaworth. While she represents lost love and thwarted dreams, it’s ever-faithful Boatswain who stands for loyalty. 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, unnotic’d all his worth, Deny’d 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, Debas’d 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 tongue hypocrisy, thy heart deceit! By nature vile, ennobled but by name, Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame. Ye! who behold perchance this simple urn, Pass on, it honors none you wish to mourn. To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise; I never knew but one-and here he lies. George Gordon Byron. Though born with a club foot managed to distinguish himself in school sports.

He went on to a dissolute youth, drinking wildly and bedding every woman who was attracted to his brooding nature and elegant limp (there was an extraordinary number of those young ladies). He inherited a title spoke quite passionately in the House of Lords in defense of workers long before it was fashionable to do so , and became one of England’s greatest poets. He was tough minded and cynical and wrote about stormy emotions and great lovers,(one of which was considered to be by many people, including himself) He was of course Lord Byron, author of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Don Juan and a notorious rakehell, A magnificent Newfoundland born in Newfoundland in 1801 became Byron’s dog. It was said that it had once saved his life, but it is certain that the splendid dog, called Boatswain got through Byron’s defenses to his affection and loyalty as no other women ever did. The dog died of some kind of fit in 1808 and a friend reported that a distraught Byron wiped the dog’s saliva away with his bare hands during the paroxysm When the dog died Byron was inconsolable – and enraged that anyone should find it default to understand his grief over a mere dog.

The result of this grief and anger is a startling monument to Boatswain, placed over the dog’s remains at Newstead Abbey in England. There is a long inscription on the tomb which has been scorned by some as to flowery, rococo and ridiculously overstated. To think so is to miss the anger. The bittersweet and above all the intense grief that Byron felt, expressed through a nature which never cared for moderation in any form. This that angry poem: 6th Baron Byron - 'Epitaph to a Dog' (1808) 6th Baron Byron are deposited the Remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, and all the virtues of Man without his Vices. 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 in Newfoundland May 1803 and died at Newstead Nov. 18, 1808.

A Landseer Newfoundland dog, the same breed as Byron's Boatswain When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth, Unknown by 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, Unhonoured 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 tongue hypocrisy, thy words deceit! By nature vile, ennobled but by name, Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.

Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn, Pass on – it honors none you wish to mourn. To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise; I never knew but one – and here he lies. Byron's 'Epitaph to a Dog' Byron's memorial poem "Epitaph to a Dog" was written in 1808, following the death of his Newfoundland dog, named Boatswain. The dog had contracted rabies, and the poem was written to eulogize the dog, with Byron planning to use the last two lines as the inscription on the dogs tomb. The entire poem was eventually used to inscribe the dog's memorial, which was placed at Byron's estate at Newstead Abbey. The poem as inscribed at the tomb of Boatswain Analysis Byron was a man exceptionally aware of the human capacity for betrayal, vanity and malice, himself falling prey to these vices as a regular habit. It is not hard to see how, recognizing this about himself and--perhaps to a fault--humankind in general, that he would so perceive and admire the steadfast and seemingly selfless nature of a companion dog.

The tone of the poem alternates between lauding the virtues of the fallen dog and railing against the inadequacies and evils of men. This is one of the few pieces I have read that, discussing a beloved animal, refuses to anthropomorphize the animal at all. This is the point of the piece, really, to set and contrast the dearly departed companion from cruel and inconsistent man. For my part, I find the emotions of the poem moving, and the vulnerability displayed in its writing an interesting facet of the author's character, especially in light of the cavalier manner that Byron was know to treat other humans, in his relationships with them. As a devoted pet-keeper myself, the subject speaks to feelings I have held, as well, and I find the piece easy to empathize with.

Question: Which English Romantic Poet had a Newfoundland dog named Boatswain?
Answer: Lord Byron