Allan Cunningham

254

A CHILD'S WINTER EVENING

The smothering dark engulfs relentlessly

With nightmare tread approaching steadfastly;

All horrors thicken as the daylight fails

And, is it wind, or some lost ghost that wails?

Tongue cannot tell the stories that beset,

With livid pictures blackness dense as jet,

Or that wild questioning—whence we are; and why;