Like some black host the shadows fall,
And darkness camps among the trees;
Each wildwood road, a Goblin Hall,
Grows populous with mysteries.
Night comes with brows of ragged storm,
And limbs of writhen cloud and mist;
The rain-wind hangs upon her arm
Like some wild girl that will be kissed.
By her gaunt hand the leaves are shed
Like nightmares an enchantress herds;
And, like a witch who calls the dead,
The hill-stream whirls with foaming words.
Then all is sudden silence and
Dark fear—like his who can not see,
Yet hears, aye in a haunted land,
Death rattling on a gallow's tree.
IV.
The days approach again; the days,
Whose mantles stream, whose sandals drag;
When in the haze by puddled ways
Each gnarled thorn seems a crookéd hag.
When rotting orchards reek with rain;
And woodlands crumble, leaf and log;
And in the drizzling yard again
The gourd is tagged with points of fog.
Oh, let me seat my soul among
Your melancholy moods! and touch
Your thoughts' sweet sorrow without tongue,
Whose silence says too much, too much!