The Hut by the Black Swamp
Now comes the fierce north-easter, boundAbout with clouds and racks of rain,And dry, dead leaves go whirling roundIn rings of dust, and sigh like painAcross the plain.
Now twilight, with a shadowy handOf wild dominionship, doth keepStrong hold of hollow straits of land,And watery sounds are loud and deepBy gap and steep.
Keen, fitful gusts, that fly beforeThe wings of storm when day hath shutIts eyes on mountains, flaw by flaw,Fleet down by whistling box-tree butt,Against the hut.
And, ringed and girt with lurid pomp,Far eastern cliffs start up, and takeThick steaming vapours from a swampThat lieth like a great blind lake,Of face opaque.
The moss that, like a tender grief,About an English ruin clings—What time the wan autumnal leafFaints, after many wanderingsOn windy wings—
That gracious growth, whose quiet greenIs as a love in days austere,Was never seen—hath never been—On slab or roof, deserted hereFor many a year.
Nor comes the bird whose speech is song—Whose songs are silvery syllablesThat unto glimmering woods belong,And deep, meandering mountain dellsBy yellow wells.
But rather here the wild-dog halts,And lifts the paw, and looks, and howls;And here, in ruined forest vaults,Abide dim, dark, death-featured owls,Like monks in cowls.
Across this hut the nettle runs,And livid adders make their lairIn corners dank from lack of suns,And out of foetid furrows stareThe growths that scare.
Here Summer’s grasp of fire is laidOn bark and slabs that rot, and breedSquat ugly things of deadly shade,The scorpion, and the spiteful seedOf centipede.
Unhallowed thunders, harsh and dry,And flaming noontides, mute with heat,Beneath the breathless, brazen sky,Upon these rifted rafters beatWith torrid feet.
And night by night the fitful galeDoth carry past the bittern’s boom,The dingo’s yell, the plover’s wail,While lumbering shadows start, and loom,And hiss through gloom.
No sign of grace—no hope of green,Cool-blossomed seasons marks the spot;But chained to iron doom, I ween,’Tis left, like skeleton, to rotWhere ruth is not.
For on this hut hath murder writ,With bloody fingers, hellish things;And God will never visit itWith flower or leaf of sweet-faced Springs,Or gentle wings.