A generous, intense tribute to a loving but profoundly mysterious companion
Sonnet: To Tartar, a Terrier Beauty
Snowdrop of dogs, with ear of brownest dye,
Like the last orphan leaf of naked tree
Which shudders in bleak autumn; though by thee,
Of hearing careless and untutored eye,
Not understood articulate speech of men
Nor marked the artificial mind of books,
The mortal’s voice eternized by the pen,
Yet hast thou thought and language all unknown
To Babel’s scholars; oft intensest looks,
Long scrutiny o’er some dark-veined stone
Dost thou bestow, learning dead mysteries
Of the world’s birth-day, oft in eager tone
With quick-tailed fellows bandiest prompt replies,
Solicitudes canine, four-footed amities.