TO A TERRIER

Crib, on your grave beneath the chestnut boughs
To-day no fragrance falls nor summer air,
Only a master's love who laid you there
Perchance may warm the earth 'neath which you drowse
In dreams from which no dinner gong may rouse,
Unwakeable, though close the rat may dare,
Deaf, though the rabbit thump in playful scare,
Silent, though twenty tabbies pay their vows.
And yet, mayhap, some night when shadows pass,
And from the fir the brown owl hoots on high,
That should one whistle 'neath a favoring star
Your small white shade shall patter o'er the grass,
Questing for him you loved o' days gone by,
Ere Death the Dog-Thief carried you afar!

RHAPSODY ON
A DOG'S INTELLIGENCE

From Rhymes of Home
BY BURGES JOHNSON

By permission of the Author, and of the Publishers
G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York