Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830–1886)

WILD, rapid, dark, like dreams of threatening doom,

Low cloud-racks scud before the level wind;

Beneath them, the bare moorlands, blank and blind,

Stretch, mournful, through pale lengths of glimmering gloom;

Afar, grand mimic of the sea-waves’ boom,

Hollow, yet sweet as if a Titan pined

O’er deathless woes, yon mighty wood, consigned

To autumn’s blight, bemoans its perished bloom;

The dim air creeps with a vague shuddering thrill

Down from those monstrous mists the sea-gale brings,

Half-formless, inland, poisoning earth and sky;

Most from yon black cloud, shaped like vampire wings

Or a lost angel’s visage, deathly-still,

Uplifted toward some dread eternity.