He's a friend, a pal, a partner; I like him fine. For he keeps his own opinions And I keep mine.
We never argue politics, Nor gossip much, We never talk about the heat Or cold, and such.
We have never told each other One single lie; For he is deaf and dumb, you see, And so am I.
At first, the speaker sounds like someone praising a convenient companion: a friend who keeps his opinions to himself, never argues about politics, never bores anyone with small talk about the weather. It reads like a gentle joke about how nice it would be to have a friend who simply doesn't bother you. The tone is warm and light, almost teasing.
The last stanza supplies the twist. The reason they never lie to each other is that both men are deaf and mute, so they share no spoken words at all. What looked like a chosen peace turns out to be a shared condition. The humor stays, but a quieter feeling sits underneath it: a sense of closeness that needs no words, and perhaps a hint of loneliness too. The speaker seems content, even proud of this honesty. Still, the poem leaves you wondering whether silence makes a friendship pure or simply limited.