we take the very young
child and force it around, so that it sees
objects -- not the Open, which is so
deep in animals' faces. Free from death.
We, only, can see death; the free animal
has its decline in back of it, forever,
and God in front, and when it moves, it moves
already in eternity, like a fountain.
... it feels its life as boundless,
unfathomable, and without regard
to its own condition: pure, like its outward gaze.
And where we see the future, it sees all time
and itself within all time, forever healed.
(Rilke, Duino Elegies)

The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Stephen Mitchell (New York: Random House, 1982), 193, 195.