The Poetry of Dogs

Man's best friend. An always faithful ally.Whether the dog is domesticated as a pet and there to enjoy life with a family or as a work-dog herding sheep, helping to hunt, police or guard, the dog has proved time and time again to have many invaluable uses. They come in all shapes and sizes from sought after breeds to lowly mongrels each with an array of qualities that give them distinct personalities. From earliest times dogs have been able to find a unique place fulfilling the needs of their keepers and often there is equal devotion from master to servant. A dog's life no longer has to have negative connotations as so many pooches are loved, extravagantly fed, groomed, petted and pawed over, all perhaps more than our fellow man. Dogs were even worshipped as deities in Mesopotamian times and across several cultures and civilisations including Hindu, Chinese and Greek, they are the helpers, the watchers or guardians of sacred or sensitive sites. Between then and now poets have written verse, both serious and humorous, in attempts to keep a poetic track both of feelings and as a tribute to our four-legged friends and their adventures.1 - The Poetry of Dogs - An Introduction2 - A Friendly Welcome by Lord Byron3 - A Popular Personage At Home by Thomas Hardy4 - The Power of the Dog by Rudyard Kiping5 - Verse for a Certain Dog by Dorothy Parker6 - The Best Friend by Meribah Abbott7 - The Joy of a Dog by Edgar Albert Guest8 - Dog by Harold Munro9 - My Comforter by Anonymous10 - Four Feet. 'The Woman in His Life' by Rudyard Kipling11 - The Dog and His Master by Anne Kingsmill-Finch12 - Little Lost Pup by Arthur Guiterman13 - A Little Dog That Wags His Tail by Emily Dickinson14 - The Hairy Dog by Herbert Asquith15 - Dogs and Weather by Winifred Welles16 - Incident. Charactristic of a Favourite Dog Which Belonged to a Friend of the Author by William Wordsworth17 - Confessions of a Glutton by Don Marquis18 - The Fable of the Shepherd and Wolf by John Gay19 - On a Spaniel Called 'Beau', Killing a Young Bird by William Cowper20 - Beau's Reply by William Cowper21 - Contentment by Burges Johnson wav22 - The Comic Adventures of Old Mother Hubbard and Her Dog by Anonymous23 - The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat by Eugene Field24 - How the Feud Started by Arthur Guiterman25 - Tray by Robert Browning26 - The Dog and the Water Lily. No Fable by William Cowper27 - The Irish Greyhound by Katherine Phillips28 - The Fable of the Mastiff by John Gay29 - The Dog in the Manger by Aphra Behn30 - Towser, A True Tale, 20th July 1806 by Robert Tannahill31 - The Dog of St Bernard's by Caroline Fry Wilson32 - Sonnet - To Tartar, A Terrier Beauty by Thomas Lovell Beddoes33 - Tobias's Dog by Mary Howitt34 - I Started Early - Took my Dog by Emily Dickinson35 - Canis Major by Robert Frost36 - Man and Dog by Edward Thomas37 - Dog Days by Amy Lowell38 - So This Is How I Turned into a Dog by Vladamir Mayakovsky39 - The Dogs by Arthur Symons40 - To a Black Greyhound by Julian Grenfell41 - An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog by Oliver Goldsmith42 - The Dog Tupman by Stella Benson43 - Upon His Spaniel Tracy by Robert Herrick44 - To Rollo by Kenneth Grahame45 - Ruby by Edward Lear46 - To Flush, My Dog by Elizabeth Barrett Browning47 - Kaiser Dead by Matthew Arnold48 - Epitaph to a Dog by Lord Byron49 - Last Words To A Dumb Friend by Thomas Hardy