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“The Lullaby” by Edwin Muir 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (15 May 1887 – 3 Jan 1959)
The lullaby has crooned to sleep so many
On all the iron fields in such a clamour,
There is astonishment
Among the waking.
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So quickly these awake were cast in slumber,
Full in the light, then covered thick in shadow
There seemed no tithe to shed
Them from the others.
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So deafening the clamour, soft the crooning,
So swift the change and sumple the confusion,
That these though side by side
Were far asunder.
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The returning and the unreturning races,
Those who took heed, and those who would not listen
But turned straight towards the dark,
So that there was nothing
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To do or say, no greeting on their journey,
Farewell or words at all—these two are haunted
For ever each by each,
In each commingled.