Caedmon

All others talked as if talk were a dance. Clodhopper I, with clumsy feet would break the gliding ring. Early I learned to hunch myself close by the door: then when the talk began I’d wipe my mouth and wend unnoticed back to the barn to be with the warm beasts, dumb among body sounds of the simple ones. I’d see by a twist of lit rush the motes of gold moving from shadow to shadow slow in the wake of deep untroubled sighs. The cows munched or stirred or were still. I was at home and lonely, both in good measure. Until the sudden angel affrighted me—light effacing my feeble beam, a forest of torches, feathers of flame, sparks upflying: but the cows as before were calm, and nothing was burning, nothing but I, as that hand of fire touched my lips and scorched my tongue and pulled my voice into the ring of the dance.