The poplars

Why are the poplars to-night so aquiver?

So eerily, wildly? What betokens their sound?

The sallow moon has faded long beyond the mound

Distant and dark as foreboding; on the river

Gloomily plunged in silence, leaden and grey

Visions have been scattered amid this dead night.

The poplars alone, upreared upon the height,

Rustle, rustle eerily and skyward sway.

Alone in the night by the silent water here

I stand, as the last mortal. It is my shadow that

Lies earthward before me. To-night I am in fear

Of myself, my own shadow, and I tremble thereat.