Page:The Poems of Henry Kendall (1920).djvu/99

 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 fœtid furrows stare

The growths that scare.

Here Summer's 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.