Minstrel's Song

I've just had an astonishing dream as I lay in the straw.

I dreamed a star fell on to the straw beside me

And lay blazing. Then when I looked up

I saw a bull come flying through a sky of fire

And on its shoulders a huge silver woman

Holding the moon. And afterwards there came

A donkey flying through that same burning heaven

And on its shoulders a colossal man

Holding the sun. Suddenly I awoke

And saw a bull and a donkey kneeling in the straw,

and the great moving shadows of a man and a woman---

I say they were a man and a woman but

I dare not say what I think they were. I did not dare to look.

I ran out here into the freezing world

Because I dared not look. Inside that shed.

A star is coming this way along the road.

If I were not standing upright, this would be a dream.

A star the shape of a sword of fire, point-downward,

Is floating along the road. And now it rises.

It is shaking fire on to the roofs and the gardens.

And now it rises above the animal shed

Where I slept till the dream woke me. And now

The star is standing over the animal shed.

--Ted Hughes