Rudyard Kipling/Tear Jerker

"Legate, I come to you in tears -- My cohort ordered home!
 * The Roman Centurion's Song.

I've served in Britain forty years! What should I do in Rome?

Here is my heart, my soul, my mind--the only life I know.

I cannot leave it all behind. Command me not to go!"

"When the body that lived at your single will,
 * My Boy Jack, about all the red tape surrounding his trying to get word of how his son died.
 * "The Power of the Dog" makes it clear that owning a dog will eventually break your heart:

With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!)"

"Master, pity Thy Servant! He is deaf and three parts blind.
 * So does "His Apologies":

He cannot catch Thy Commandments. He cannot read Thy Mind.

Oh, leave him not to his loneliness, nor make him that kitten's scorn.

He hath had none other God than Thee since the year that he was born."


 * Hits especially hard because the previous stanzas were funny and/or heartwarming.