Through woods the Spanish moss makes gray, <br />With deeps the daylight never reaches, <br />The water sluices slow its way, <br />And chokes with weeds its beaches. <br /> <br />'T was here, lost in this lone bayou, <br />Where poison brims each blossom's throat, <br />Last night I followed a firefly glow, <br />And oared a leaky boat. <br /> <br />The way was dark; and overhead <br />The wailing limpkin moaned and cried; <br />The moss, like cerements of the dead, <br />Waved wildly on each side. <br /> <br />The way was black, albeit the trees <br />Let here and there the moonlight through, <br />The shadows, 'mid the cypress-knees, <br />Seemed ominous of hue. <br /> <br />And then behold! a boat that oozed <br />Slow slime and trailed rank water-weeds, <br />Loomed on me: in which, interfused, <br />Great glow-worms glowed like beads. <br /> <br />And in its rotting hulk, upright, <br />His eyeless eyes fixed far before, <br />A dead man sat, and stared at night, <br />Grasping a rotting oar. <br /> <br />Slowly it passed; and fearfully <br />The moccasin slid in its wake; <br />The owl shrunk shrieking in its tree; <br />And in its hole the snake. <br /> <br />But I, who met it face to face, <br />I could not shrink or turn aside: <br />Within that dark and demon place <br />There was no place to hide. <br /> <br />Slowly it passed; for me too slow! <br />The grim Death, in the moon's faint shine, <br />Whose story, haply, none may know <br />Save th' owl that haunts the pine.<br /><br />Madison Julius Cawein<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-egret-hunter/
