The Dog's Book of Verse

Collected by
'I never barked when out of season; I never bit without a reason; I ne'er insulted weaker brother, Nor wronged by fraud or force another;' Though brutes are placed a rank below, Happy for man could he say so.
Boston Small, Maynard & Company Publishers
Copyright, 1916 By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (INCORPORATED)
TO THE MEMORY OF JACK, AN AIREDALE
Matthew Arnold, explaining why those were his most popular poems which dealt with his canine pets, Geist, Kaiser, and Max, said that while comparatively few loved poetry, nearly everyone loved dogs.
The literature of the Anglo-Saxon is rich in tributes to the dog, as becomes a race which beyond any other has understood and developed its four-footed companions. Canine heroes whose intelligence and faithfulness our prose writers have celebrated start to the memory in scores—Bill Sykes's white shadow, which refused to be separated from its master even by death; Rab, savagely devoted; the immortal Bob, son of battle —true souls all, with hardly a villain among them for artistic contrast. Even Red Wull, the killer, we admire for his courage and lealty.
Within these covers is a selection from a large body of dog verse. It is a selection made on the principle of human appeal. Dialect, and the poems of the earlier writers whose diction strikes oddly on our modern ears, have for the most part been omitted. The place of such classics as may be missed is filled by that vagrant verse which is often most truly the flower of inspiration.

What other nature yours than of a child Whose dumbness finds a voice mighty to call, In wordless pity, to the souls of all, Whose lives I turn to profit, and whose mute And constant friendship links the man and brute?

Still half in dream, upon the stair I hear A patter coming nearer and more near, And then upon my chamber door A gentle tapping, For dogs, though proud, are poor, And if a tail will do to give command Why use a hand? And after that a cry, half sneeze, half yapping, And next a scuffle on the passage floor, And then I know the creature lies to watch Until the noiseless maid will lift the latch. And like a spring That gains its power by being tightly stayed, The impatient thing Into the room Its whole glad heart doth fling, And ere the gloom Melts into light, and window blinds are rolled, I hear a bounce upon the bed, I feel a creeping toward me—a soft head, And on my face A tender nose, and cold— This is the way, you know, that dogs embrace— And on my hand, like sun-warmed rose-leaves flung, The least faint flicker of the warmest tongue —And so my dog and I have met and sworn Fresh love and fealty for another morn.