A hand-written poem by a teenaged Bob Dylan and signed Bobby Zimmerman is seen here in this undated handout photo from Christies Auction House - Reuters

NEW YORK A poem Bob Dylan wrote when he was a teenager about a dead dog is to go on the auction block next month.

The handwritten poem called 'Little Buddy' is the earliest by the singing legend to come to auction and is estimated to sell for between 10,000 and 15,000 dollars at Christie's on June 23, the auctioneers said.

The two-page poem, signed by Bobby Zimmerman, as he was called before he changed his name, 'is a dark and mournful poem, about the murder of a boy's dog,' Christie's said in a statement.

'I'll meet my precious buddy up in the sky/ By a tiny narrow grave/ Where the willows sadly wave,' the poem reads.

Dylan penned the poem in the mid-1950s while he was a camper at Herzl Camp in Wisconsin.— AFP