Lyric Poem · Death & Loss
To a Lady with an Unruly and Ill-mannered Dog Who Bit several Persons of Importance
1Your dog is not a dog of grace;
2He does not wag the tail or beg;
3He bit Miss Dickson in the face;
4He bit a Bailie in the leg.
5What tragic choices such a dog
6Presents to visitor or friend!
7Outside there is the Glasgow fog;
8Within, a hydrophobic end.
9Yet some relief even terror brings,
10For when our life is cold and gray
11We waste our strength on little things,
12And fret our puny souls away.
13A snarl! A scruffle round the room!
14A sense that Death is drawing near!
15And human creatures reassume
16The elemental robe of fear.
17So when my colleague makes his moan
18Of careless cooks, and warts, and debt,
19 — Enlarge his views, restore his tone,
20And introduce him to your Pet!
21Quod Raleigh.
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“To a Lady with an Unruly and Ill-mannered Dog Who Bit several Persons of Importance” by Sir Walter Raleigh — quilloak.com/poems/to-a-lady-with-an-unruly-and-ill-mannered-dog-who-bit-several-persons-of-importance
Quick facts
- Poem
- To a Lady with an Unruly and Ill-mannered Dog Who Bit several Persons of Importance
- Poet
- Sir Walter Raleigh
- Length
- 21 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Death & Loss, Friendship, Peace
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 21 lines · 6 stanzas of 1–4 lines
- Line length
- Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Sir Walter Raleighc. 1552–1618
- Source record
- PoetryDBTo a Lady with an Unruly and Ill-mannered Dog Who Bit several Persons of Importance by sir-walter-raleigh, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 e23d0efe55aa7ef8…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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