The Hut by the Black Swamp

Now comes the fierce north-easter, bound     About with clouds and racks of rain,     And dry, dead leaves go whirling round     In rings of dust, and sigh like pain     Across the plain.     Now twilight, with a shadowy hand     Of wild dominionship, doth keep     Strong hold of hollow straits of land,     And watery sounds are loud and deep     By gap and steep.     Keen, fitful gusts, that fly before     The wings of storm when day hath shut     Its 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 take     Thick steaming vapours from a swamp     That 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 leaf     Faints, after many wanderings     On windy wings     That gracious growth, whose quiet green     Is as a love in days austere,     Was never seen hath never been     On slab or roof, deserted here     For many a year.     Nor comes the bird whose speech is song     Whose songs are silvery syllables     That unto glimmering woods belong,     And deep, meandering mountain dells     By 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 lair     In corners dank from lack of suns,     And out of foetid furrows stare     The growths that scare.     Here Summers grasp of fire is laid     On bark and slabs that rot, and breed     Squat ugly things of deadly shade,     The scorpion, and the spiteful seed     Of centipede.     Unhallowed thunders, harsh and dry,     And flaming noontides, mute with heat,     Beneath the breathless, brazen sky,     Upon these rifted rafters beat     With torrid feet.     And night by night the fitful gale     Doth carry past the bitterns boom,     The dingos yell, the plovers 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 rot     Where ruth is not.     For on this hut hath murder writ,     With bloody fingers, hellish things;     And God will never visit it     With flower or leaf of sweet-faced Springs,     Or gentle wings.