“Basil’s Bow-Wows”

This is compliments of Henry Zecher, a friend many years ago from journalism school. Today, Henry is the world's greatest authority on William Gillette, who played Sherlock Holmes.

The following tribute was written by Basil Rathbone in 1933, upon the death of his beloved Moritz, a black German shepherd. Rathbone was a major dog lover and among the finest actors of his generation. He is remembered chiefly for playing Sherlock Holmes:

MORITZ

WITH RESPECT,

ADMIRATION AND

EVERLASTING LOVE

OUIDA AND BASIL

Come winter time and summer time,

Come sweet and cleansing rain,

Come spring time and the autumn,

Both sun and moon shall wane,

Come seed time and flowering,

And harvesting the grain,

The Earth will cease and time grow old,

But we shall meet again.

'Twas not for naught we walked the fields,

The sidewalks and the lanes,

Sharing our hopes, our fears, our doubts,

Beliefs, our joys and pains.

And though I, with human weakness,

Have not always understood,

You with your dog devotion

Blindly believe me good.

Now you will sleep a little while

And dream in peace, please God,

Then one day I shall follow you

And sleep too beneath the sod,

To rise with you and walk again

With a vague sense of remembering

That we had loved in other lives,

Before this new ascending.

For more information, visit “Basil’s Bow-Wows” at www.basilrathbone.net/potpourri/dogs/