The Animals, by Edwin Muir

They do not live in the world,

Are not in time and space.

From birth to death hurled

No word do they have, not one

To plant a foot upon,

Were never in any place.

For with names the world was called

Out of the empty air,

With names was built and walled,

Line and circle and square,

Dust and emerald;

Snatched from deceiving death

By the articulate breath.

But these have never trod

Twice the familiar track,

Never never turned back

Into the memoried day.

All is new and near

In the unchanging Here

On the fifth great day of God,

That shall remain the same,

Never shall pass away.

On the sixth day we came.

From “Lament for the Makers: A Memorial Anthology” by W. S. Merwin. (Counterpoint: 89 pp., $19) Copyright 1996 Reprinted by permission.