(Photo taken on her 13th birthday.)
Sing, dogs of draught, your howling hymn of grief!
Sing, and lament the passing of your Queen.
For sneaking Death has, like some midday thief,
Rapt Tonya from our midst and crept unseen
Away with our brightest jewel. Our sorrow keen,
Howl forth our loss, for now on Hades' shore
Forging her trail where none of us has been,
Tonya loose-leads the way to heaven's door.
Howl for the Leader Queen who lopes our trails no more.
Seppala Kennels perpetually commemorates the death of Tonya of Seppala (by Xpace of Seppalta out of River View's Sprite, bred in the Yukon by J. Jeffrey Bragg), of cancer, on the 2nd of August 2011, aged 15 years 9 months and one day. She is sorely missed by her people even now that she has been gone from us for over four years. There will never be another Seppala quite like Tonya; she was a great, once-in-a-lifetime leader, a grand personal companion, a fine brood bitch, and "poster girl" for the entire Seppala Siberian Sleddog Project. Tonya's indomitable sister Kolyma of Seppala passed on 23 April 2014 at the advanced age of seventeen years and two months.
O let me forever weep! Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
My Eyes no more shall welcome sleep:
I'll hide me from the sight of Day,
and sigh my Soul away.
She's gone, her loss deplore;
and I shall never see her more.
O let me weep! forever weep!
Exiled for ever, let me mourn;
Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.
Down vain lights, shine you no more!
No nights are dark enough for those
That in despair their lost fortunes deplore.
Light doth but shame disclose.
Never may my woes be relieved,
Since pity is fled;
And tears and sighs and groans my weary days, my weary days
Of all joys have deprived.
From the highest spire of contentment
My fortune is thrown;
And fear and grief and pain for my deserts, for my deserts
Are my hopes, since hope is gone.
Hark! you shadows that in darkness dwell,
Learn to contemn light
Happy, happy they that in hell
Feel not the world's despite.
