The Dog's Book of Verse
                                            
                            by J. Earl Clauson
                            
                                12 Nov, 2018                            
                            
                         
                                        
                                                                        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 tri
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                                                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. Less