Four hooves rang out and now are still.
In the dark wall the casements hold
Essential day above each sill,
Just light, and colored like thin gold.
Behind those hooves a drowsy course
All night I rode where hearts were clear,
And wishes blessed at the source,
And for no shape of time stop here.
No more to raise that lively ghost
Which ran quicksilver to the bone:
By a whim’s turn the whole was lost
When all its marrow worth was known.
Ghosts can cast shadows in the breast,
And what was present tears to weep,
Not heart nor mind would bid from rest
As far as sorrow’s, ten years deep.
I travel, not for a ghost’s sake,
One step from sleep, and not for one
Left sleeping at my side I wake.
Before bricks rosy with the dawn,
The hooves will sound beyond the light:
There are dark roads enough to go
To last us through the end of night,
And I will make my waking slow,
It was for unconcerning light
That has not fallen on earth, to stare
An instant only out of night
And with night’s cloudy character,
Before the laden mind shall slip
Past dream and on to brightmost dream
And fetterless high morning dip
Her two cold sandals in the stream.
Léonie Adams (1899 – 1988) was an American poet. She was appointed the seventh Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1948.
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