Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti
Arthur William Edgar OShaughnessy (18441881)From Bisclaveret (Epic of Women)
N
Of lowland drear, and barren wold,
I scour, and ne’er assuage my haste,
Inflamed with yearnings manifold;
To come around me like a flood;
While all the track of moonlight gleams
Before me like a streak of blood;
A-dying on the night behind,
And sudden piercing stings are cast
Against me in the tainted wind.
And rising of the stray wild leaves;
The swaying pine, and shivering fir,
And windy sound that moans and heaves
The whole wild forest lolls about;
And all the fiercer clamour grows,
And all the moan becomes a shout;
Breathe freely; and the mingled roar
Is as of floods beneath some star
Of storms, when shore cries unto shore.
Beyond the forest tracks, in thick
Wild coverts, or in deserts bare,
Behold they come,—renewed and quick—
By midnight, when tempestuous moons
Light them to many a shadowy prey,
And earth beneath the thunder swoons.