Ancestral

--Archibald MacLeish

The star dissolved in evening—the one star

The silently

                   and night O soon now, soon

And still the light now

                                    and still now the large

Relinquishing

                     and through the pools of blue

Still, still the swallows

                                       and a wind now

                                                            and the tree

Gathering darkness:

                              I was small. I lay

Beside my mother on the grass, and sleep

Came—

          slow hooves and dripping with the dark

The velvet muzzles, the white feet that move

In a dream water

                        and O soon now soon

Sleep and the night.

                              And I was not afraid.

Her hand lay over mine. Her fingers knew

Darkness,—and sleep—the silent lands, the far

Far off of morning where I should awake.