The Sweetness of Dogs
The Sweetness of Dogs - meaning Summary
Love Redirects Our Attention
The poem contrasts the speaker’s awe before the moon with Percy’s uncomplicated devotion. While the speaker reflects on human smallness, time, and the beauty of the world, the dog treats her as an object of equal wonder. Oliver presents love as a way of returning attention from abstract thought to the intimate, living relationship beside us.
Read Complete AnalysesWhat do you say, Percy? I am thinking of sitting out on the sand to watch the moon rise. It’s full tonight. So we go and the moon rises, so beautiful it makes me shudder, makes me think about time and space, makes me take measure of myself: one iota pondering heaven. Thus we sit, myself thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s perfect beauty and also, oh! how rich it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile, leans against me and gazes up into my face. As though I were just as wonderful as the perfect moon.
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