Witnesses by cloudyhymns  

Gone with the horn of the Eldar are the hounds
The thicket carries not their cry, their call
Alone now, the noses that tallied the deer
That warned of wolves or harried the hound
These watchers in the writing of another's great tale.

May they know their work to be well done
Their drives alive and doubts passed
May they hear their masters hallowed
And call it not these creatures' faults
That they were bred to bear and bay.

Let fingers find the edges of canines
Make eyes light red as lamp-flame
Lanterns for the lost, ready and reaching
Grieving those gone and the price of pursuit
As once they too were whelps and whined.

May their masters matter more
So not in vain sounded their Song
Their fields ever where friends said to follow
Trotting in half-steps at the heels of hunters
Or dragged through dungeons with daggered eyes

Whetting and wisdom for man has ever been the dog’s Design
As a measure of morals, to serve without self—
One need only look to ears cast askew
To hear a hundred words more from a hound
Than from kindred kind or lovers longing.

Waiting for those who war against nature’s chaining is the canine's lot,
Destined never to near their masters’ far shores.
Loyalty is best left as a line of teeth to the throat,
One cry to match in the other's name, wolf and wolf-hound,
Singers great and witnesses only to the gathering of the choir.

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