_My Dog_

He wastes no time in idle talk.
His vows of friendship are unspoken.
As in familiar ways we walk,
Our musings by no word are broken.
Or if, perchance, I voice some phrase
(More light and garrulous am I),
He answers with a speaking gaze,
Half-sister to a song or sigh.

Sweet is the silence of a friend
Whose mood so merges with my own,
And sad would be the journey's end
Were I to pass this way alone.
Perhaps the shadows and the dust
Some faint reply would frame for me
Should I demand if Time were just
To merge all waters with the sea.

Thus pondering, a sigh I heave
That thoughts my naked soul should flay.
Yet dreams of death he bids me leave,
And glory in the living day.
Before me in the path he leaps.
He reads my mood, and bids me, "Come!
Sweet Summer's in the wooded deeps!"
And yet men say that he is dumb.

--_Jack Burroughs_.