III.
Where was I last Friday night?—
Within the forest of dark dreams
Seeing the mists rise left and right,
Like the leathery fog that heaves and steams
From the rolling horror of Hell's red streams.
While the wind, that tossed in the tattered tree,
And danced alone with the last mad leaf ...
Or was it the wind?... kept whispering me—
"Now bury it here with its own black grief,
And its eyes of fire you can not brave!"—
And in the darkness I seemed to see
My own self digging my soul a grave.
LYNCHERS.
At the moon's down-going, let it be
On the quarry bill with its one gnarled tree....
The red-rock road of the underbrush,
Where the woman came through the summer hush.
The sumach high, and the elder thick,
Where we found the stone and the ragged stick.
The trampled road of the thicket, full
Of foot-prints down to the quarry pool.
The rocks that ooze with the hue of lead,
Where we found her lying stark and dead.