1

The day close-hunted, the night already winged,
the sea was a gun-shot wound;
heads were covered, hands were ringed,
and the sky was most preciously mooned.

It was a hushed and breathless night
with ages floating past;
and there was never a sail in sight
and never one move that was fast.

It was a motionless ballroom dance,
and round and round it went:
The mummers dared never take any chance,
the dancers nor bowed nor bent.

2

The mummers all suffered the inhibited roar
of the right incantations to say:
A flock of bay rabbits poured in through the door,
high-chanting on their way.

The dancers inaudibly froze to the ground,
though, who would have noticed, that night?
They clustered together, the world went round
and was facing a brain-aching sight.

The fog-smoke hurled, the moon-drops pearled,
soft carnations curled through midnight;
as dark-eyed rabbits perched on the world
in rabbit-song cheerful and kid-bright.

3

It was a mild and gentle night,
that night when things went wrong;
so all were quite surprised by the sight
and befuddled by the song.

The sight that nobody ever sees,
about which they were much in pains,
was a picture of angels suspended from trees
adorn'd with sweet boudoir chains.

The song they never had heard before
and which took their breath away,
was the sound of ripples capsized on shore,
the sound of septembering hay.