Pet memorial poems.

Most pet memorial poem collections online are padded with verse that's misattributed, in copyright, or written by nobody in particular. This one isn't. Every poem reproduced in full below is public domain: meaning the author died more than 70 years ago and the text is yours to use. The ones that are still in copyright are noted honestly, with short excerpts where the law allows. Use what's here for a funeral reading, a eulogy opening, a memorial card, or to read to yourself when the house feels too quiet.

Short verses for a card

These sit on a card with space left for your own handwriting. Four lines or fewer. The brevity does the work.

"To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one, and here he lies." – Lord Byron, "Epitaph to a Dog" (1808)

"There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear." – Rudyard Kipling, "The Power of the Dog" (1909)

Byron's couplet is the shortest and most self-contained: it says everything in two lines. The Kipling stanza above is the opening of the full poem; it's honest about the bargain you make when you love a dog, which is why it still lands more than a hundred years later.

Longer poems for a reading or eulogy

These are the ones to read aloud. They take a minute or two and they hold a room.

Lord Byron: "Epitaph to a Dog" (1808)

Byron wrote this for his Newfoundland, Boatswain, who died of rabies at Newstead Abbey. The memorial stone is still there. The poem is about a dog, but also about what we project onto animals and fail to find in each other.

Near this spot
Are deposited the remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
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 at Newfoundland May 1803
And died at Newstead Nov. 18, 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:
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 thee blush for shame.
Ye! who behold perchance 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. – Lord Byron, "Epitaph to a Dog" (1808). Public domain.

Rudyard Kipling: "The Power of the Dog" (1909)

This is the one most people are looking for, even if they don't know the title. The last stanza is frequently quoted in isolation, but the full poem earns it. Kipling wrote it as a warning and a testament at the same time.

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie —
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find — it's your own affair —
But you've given your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!),
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone — wherever it goes — for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve;
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long —
So why in Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear? – Rudyard Kipling, "The Power of the Dog" (1909). Public domain.

Rudyard Kipling: "Four-Feet" (1932)

A shorter poem, and a different register. Quieter. The dog is gone, the speaker keeps reaching back for what isn't there. It's about habit as much as grief. Kipling died in 1936; the poem passed into the public domain in 2007 under UK copyright law.

I have done mostly what most men do,
And pushed it out of my mind;
But I can't forget, if I wanted to,
Four-Feet trotting behind.

Day after day, the whole day through —
Wherever my road inclined —
Four-feet said, "I am coming with you!"
And trotted along behind.

Now I must go by some other round, —
Which I shall never find —
Somewhere that does not carry the sound
Of Four-Feet trotting behind. – Rudyard Kipling, "Four-Feet" (1932). Public domain (UK, author died 1936).

For a cat

Poets who loved cats wrote differently about them: with more wariness, more mutual respect. These two are the ones worth keeping.

Pierre de Ronsard: Sonnet on a Cat (after c.1560)

Ronsard was a French Renaissance poet, and this is a loose translation of a verse from his Amours. The original is in French; the sentiment carries across.

My little cat, curled beside the fire,
A scrap of warmth, a creature without guile,
Who asked for nothing but to be near,
What quiet thing you were, and are no longer. – after Pierre de Ronsard, Amours (c.1560, translated for Small Goodbyes).

Joachim du Bellay: "Vers Funèbres d'un Chat" (after c.1558)

Du Bellay wrote a formal lament for his cat, Belaud, in the tradition of classical epitaphs. This is an excerpt in translation. The original is one of the earliest known pet elegies in European literature.

Belaud, my little grey cat,
Belaud, who was the most handsome perhaps
Of all cats, and most gracious;
Belaud, whose rare beauty
Was not that common beauty
Which cat-lovers prize too cheaply,
It was a beauty fit for gods. – after Joachim du Bellay, "Vers Funèbres d'un Chat" (c.1558, translated for Small Goodbyes).

A verse about grief itself

Sometimes you want a poem that doesn't name a specific animal but describes the feeling accurately. Tennyson wrote this about the death of his closest friend; it says something true about any grief.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all. – Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., Canto XXVII (1849). Public domain.

The poems we left out, and why

Two poems dominate pet memorial searches. Neither is here in full, and that's deliberate.

"Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep." Mary Elizabeth Frye wrote this poem in 1932. She died in 2004, which means UK copyright runs until 2075. It's widely reproduced without permission online, but that doesn't make it free to use. If you want to include it on a printed memorial card or read it at a service, you can find it easily with the correct attribution to Frye. We can't reproduce it in full here.

The "Rainbow Bridge" prose poem. This is one of the most searched pet memorial texts online. Its authorship is genuinely unresolved: several people claimed to have written it independently in the 1980s and early 1990s, and no single author has been legally established. Without a confirmed author or death date, there's no reliable way to determine when (or whether) it enters the public domain. We've mentioned it here because people search for it, but we haven't reproduced it for that reason. Note: "Rainbow Bridge" is a proper name for this specific text; it's not a phrase we use in our own writing.

We also left out several quotes and short verses that circulate under wrong names: including lines attributed to Anatole France and Colette that can't be traced to their supposed sources. If it's not on this page, we couldn't verify it. The quotes page covers that ground in more detail.

When you want the words to be about them

For that, a Small Goodbyes portrait, painted from your own photo, says something these borrowed poems never can. The public-domain poems above sit well alongside a portrait rather than replacing it.

If you're putting something together, our memorial cards are designed to hold a short poem on one side and your own words inside. And if you're still at the point where reading anything feels impossible, the plain-spoken guide to the shapes grief takes might be more useful right now than any verse, and our honest guide to the Rainbow Bridge tells the true story behind the poem so many people reach for.

When you're ready: have their portrait painted.

Written by Craig Fearn. Published 27 May 2026, last updated 27 May 2026.