Iii

Then swallowing blackness of the night; and thin The shrewd rain beat me and the rough limbs whipped Of dwarfed, uneasy beeches. There within Their savage circle battered tombstones tipped Squat lengths to weeds the fighting winds had ripped And chopped to tatters. And I heard before, Rounding a headland, where the gaunt trees dripped,-- A shout borne deathward from night's ghastly shore,-- Hoarse as a thousand throats the river's sullen roar.