  A mile of lane,—hedged high with iron-weeds And dying daisies,—white with sun, that leads Downward into a wood; through which a stream Steals like a shadow; over which is laid A bridge of logs, worn deep by many a team, Sunk in the tangled shade. Far off a wood-dove lifts its lonely cry; And in the sleepy silver of the sky A gray hawk wheels scarce larger than a hand. From point to point the road grows worse and worse, Until that place is reached where all the land Seems burdened with some curse. A ragged fence of pickets, warped and sprung,— On which the fragments of a gate are hung,— Divides a hill, the fox and ground-hog haunt, A wilderness of briers; o'er whose tops A battered barn is seen, low-roofed and gaunt, 'Mid fields that know no crops. Fields over which a path, o'erwhelmed with burs And ragweeds, noisy with the grasshoppers, Leads,—lost, irresolute as paths the cows Wear through the woods,—unto a woodshed; then, With wrecks of windows, to a huddled house, Where men have murdered men. A house, whose tottering chimney, clay and rock, Is seamed and crannied; whose lame door and lock Are bullet-bored; around which, there and here, Are sinister stains.—One dreads to look around.— The place seems thinking of that time of fear And dares not breathe a sound. Within is emptiness: the sunlight falls On faded journals papering its walls; On advertisement chromos, torn with time, Around a hearth where wasps and spiders build.— The house is dead; meseems that night of crime It, too, was shot and killed. |
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