Talk:Epitaph to a Dog

Bit more about the tomb and the dog and anotheer of Byron's dogs

From http://www.ilkcam.com/2006/061001/Newstead%202.html - On our way to the Spanish Garden we had passed the poet Byron's monument to his dog Boatswain, who died of rabies in 1808. The monument stands above a tomb and on the spot where Byron mistakenly believed the High Altar of the priory church to have stood. Byron's intentions were for himself and Boatswain to be buried in the tomb but following the sale of Newstead Abbey this became increasingly unlikely to happen and Byron was eventually buried in the family vault in nearby Hucknall. What became of Boatswain's remains is unknown but they are no longer in the tomb although the monument is still inscribed with Byron's tribute to his favourite dog.

From http://www.newfiepuppies.com/Aboutnewfies.html - While many canines have been singled out in literature,perhaps none has been better immortalized that the Newfoundland as evidence by the poem written by the nineteenth century English romantic poet,George Gordon,Lord Byron,upon the death of his beloved Newf Boatswain.Byron acquired the big black Newfoundland when he was a young boy living in his ancestral home,Newstead Abbey.Boatswain was the Poets constant companion and bosom friend. Infact when the Newf Died,Byron vowed to be buried in the same grave when he met his own end.Unfortunately it didn't work out that way, As Lord Byron died while fighting in a civil war in Greece.But even at the end he had another Newf named Lyon by his side. The poets own words about the dog sum up the depth of his sentiment: " Thou are more faithful than men Lyon.I trust thee more." What a compliment! After Byron breathed his Last,Lyon was shipped back to England where he lived out his days with a close friend of the poet.

From http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chronologies/byronchronology/1801.html - death date of Boatswin was November 10

Haven't got a chance to incorporate ths into the article at present. I think it also worth mentioning the popularity of the lyrics - they are much quoted and referred to. I thought it was better to include the lyrics (as per earlier version of the article) rather than rely on an image to convey them. --Golden Wattle ^talk 21:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your contributions. Go ahead and paste the text of the poem into the article. I think this is done in articles on other poems. It also might be nice to have a picture of the whole monument. BTW I couldn't find much discussion of the poem itself, on the Internet or in my local library. The only book I found that mentioned it didn't say much about the poem, just how it came to be written. On the net it was mainly dog lovers who had posted it onto their websites. Steve Dufour 02:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Remove Text of Poem

The article itself needs to be more of an encyclopedic entry and less of a short lead followed by the poem's text. Article standards suggest that the text of a long poem should be added in a link to Wikisource or an alternative website, but its inclusion breaks with the wp:style standards. I am going to remove the text for the time being, until more work can be done on the subject.Mrathel (talk) 16:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Note that the edited poem in the main ariticle is missing the last line, "I never knew but one – and here he lies." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.24.251.115 (talk) 17:25, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Attribution

It needs to be cleared up as to who wrote this poem. The reference suggests someone else wrote the last lines, this page suggests someone else wrote the initial lines. What is going on?137.111.13.200 (talk) 05:17, 10 March 2013 (UTC)