Owd Bob

 "Should you, while wandering in the wild sheep land,
happen on moor or in market upon a very gentle knight,
clothed in dark grey habit,
splashed here and there with rays of moon;
free by right divine of the guild of gentlemen,
strenuous as a prince, lithe as a rowan, graceful as a girl,
with high carriage, motions and manners of a fairy queen,
should he have a noble breadth of brow,
an air of still strength born of right confidence, all unassuming;
last and most unfailing test of all,
should you look into two snow-clad eyes, calm, wistful, inscrutable,
their soft depths clothed on with eternal sadness -
yearning, as is said, for the soul that is not theirs -
know then, that you look upon one of the line
of the most illustrious sheepdogs of the North"

by Alfred Ollivant (1898)