The beggar sits at Canterbury Gate, Thin, pale, unshaven, sad. His little dog Sits patiently as a Benedictine At Vespers, pondering eternity. Not that rat terriers are permitted To make solemn vows. Still, the pup appears To take his own vocation seriously, As so few humans do. For, after all, Dogs demonstrate for us the duties of Poverty, stability, obedience, In choir, perhaps; among the garbage, yes, So that perhaps we too might live aright.
The good dogβs human plays his tin whistle Beneath usurper Henryβs1 offering-arch For Kings, as beggars do, must drag their sins And lay them before the Altar of God: The beggar drinks and drugs and smokes, and so His penance is to sit and suffer shame; The Kingβs foul murders stain his honorable soul; His penance is a stone-carved famous name Our beggar, then, is a happier man, Begging for bread at Canterbury Gate; Thoβ stones are scripted not with his poor fame, His little dog will plead his cause to God.
1Henry VII, who built the Cathedral Gate in 1517, long after the time of Henry II and St. Thomas Becket