Spirits in Bondage

by C.S. Lewis

XXXIII - How He Saw Angus the God

I heard the swallow sing in the eaves and rose
     All in a strange delight while others slept,
     And down the creaking stair, alone, tip-toes,
       So carefully I crept.

     The house was dark with silly blinds yet drawn,
     But outside the clean air was filled with light,
     And underneath my feet the cold, wet lawn
       With dew was twinkling bright.

     The cobwebs hung from every branch and spray
     Gleaming with pearly strands of laden thread,
     And long and still the morning shadows lay
       Across the meadows spread.

     At that pure hour when yet no sound of man,
     Stirs in the whiteness of the wakening earth,
     Alone through innocent solitudes I ran
       Singing aloud for mirth.

     Till I had found the open mountain heath
     Yellow with gorse, and rested there and stood
     To gaze upon the misty sea beneath,
       Or on the neighbouring wood,

     —That little wood of hazel and tall pine
     And youngling fir, where oft we have loved to see
     The level beams of early morning shine
       Freshly from tree to tree.

     Through the denser wood there's many a pool
     Of deep and night-born shadow lingers yet
     Where the new-wakened flowers are damp and cool
       And the long grass is wet.

     In the sweet heather long I rested there
     Looking upon the dappled, early sky,
     When suddenly, from out the shining air
       A god came flashing by.

     Swift, naked, eager, pitilessly fair,
     With a live crown of birds about his head,
     Singing and fluttering, and his fiery hair,
       Far out behind him spread,

     Streamed like a rippling torch upon the breeze
     Of his own glorious swiftness: in the grass
     He bruised no feathery stalk, and through the trees
       I saw his whiteness pass.

     But when I followed him beyond the wood,
     Lo! He was changed into a solemn bull
     That there upon the open pasture stood
       And browsed his lazy full.