The Dog's Book of Verse

Collected by  J. Earl Clauson

"'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."

 TO THE MEMORY OF JACK,  AN AIREDALE

 PREFACE

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.

On each of the following web pages is a single poem.  The reader can move from page to page via the links at the top and bottom of each page

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