Classic Poem

Out in the dark old forest,
There dwells a phantom of woe;
When the winds arise I can hear his sighs,
As he wanders to and fro!

He smites the woods in his frenzy,
He strips the branches bare,
And sows like chaff, with a demon laugh,
The blood-red leaves on the air!

He wrestles with woes Titanic,
And dark deeds unforgiven;
And grieves alone in a tongue unknown,
Like a soul shut out of heaven.

Above the crash of the tempest,
And the dismal roar of the rain,
When the bare limbs creak, I can hear his shriek
Of terror and of pain!

Last night from my chamber window,
I saw in the midst of the swamp,—
Through the murky gloom, his black pine plume,
And the gleam of his spectral lamp!

Outright his baleful omen
Three times the owlet cried;
And on the hearth the cricket's mirth
In sudden silence died.

In the midnight dead and solemn
He troubles my spirit most;
For the soul still hears, though mortal ears
Their grosser sense have lost.

From trouble-haunted slumber
I start to hear aghast—
In the darkness deep, the awful sweep
Of his phantom steed—the blast.

But when, like a captive lady,
Looks the moon from her cloudy tower,
And the winds are at rest he loveth best
The influence of the hour.

Ah, then, the shadowy giant,
In mountain caverns deep,
Find space of rest for his troubled breast,
And grieves himself to sleep!

Oh, say, do I live in Witchland?
Or is it the fever flame,
Whence fear is fed by a morbid dread
Of something without a name?

For there dwells in the forest somewhere,
I am sure, a phantom of woe;
When the winds arise I can hear his sighs,
As he wanders to and fro!