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GONE the wild day:

A wilder night

Coming makes way

For brief twilight.

Where the firm soaked road

Mounts and is lost

In the high beech-wood

It shines almost.

The beeches keep

A stormy rest,

Breathing deep

Of wind from the west.

The wood is black,

With a misty steam.

Above, the cloud pack

Breaks for one gleam.

But the woodman's cot

By the ivied trees

Awakens not

To light or breeze.

It smokes aloft

Unwavering:

It hunches soft

Under storm's wing.

It has no care

For gleam or gloom:

It stays there

While I shall roam,

Die, and forget

The hill of trees,

The gleam, the wet,

This roaring peace.