If we could tell this dog of ours, this dog who loved you so,
That you have journeyed from us by the road which keeps no tread,
No bending of the asphodels, no print upon the snow,
Perchance your voice might reach us from the dead.

If knowledge cast in human speech could answer his surprise,
His trouble at your silent door by bark and bound unstirred,
The question yearning up to us from brown, beseeching eyes,
We, too, might comprehend celestial word.

But untranslatable to him remains our little lore,
And incommunicable unto us of earth-bound brain
The crystal tides of wisdom your compassion longs to pour
Upon our pleading and bewildered pain.