"Or who knows but that some secret lies beneath yon dismal mound?
Ha! a dreary, dreadful secret must be buried underground!
Not a ragged blade of verdure—not one root of moss is there;
Who hath torn the grasses from it—wherefore is that barrow bare?
Darkness shuts the forest round me. Here I stand and, O my God!
This may be some injured spirit raving round and round the sod,
Hush! the tempest, how it travels! Blood hath here been surely shed—
Hush! the thunder, how it mutters! Oh, the unrequited Dead!"
Came a footfall past the water—came a wild man through the gloom,
Down he stooped and faced the current, silent as the silent tomb;
Down he stooped and lapped the ripples: not a single word he spoke,
But I whispered, "He can tell me of the Secret in the Oak?
Very thoughtful seems that forehead; many legends he may know;
Many tales and old traditions linked to what is here below!
I must ask him—rest I cannot—though my life upon it hung—
Though these wails are waxing louder, I must give my thoughts a tongue.
"Shake that silence from you, wild man! I have looked into your face,
Hoping I should learn the story there about this fearful place.
Slake your thirst, but stay and tell me: did your heart with terror beat,
When you stepped across the bare and blasted hillock at your feet?
Hearken to these croons so wretched deep within the dusk boughs pent!
Hold you not some strange tradition coupled with this strange lament?
When your tribe about their camp-fires hear that hollow, broken cry,
Do they hint of deeds mysterious, hidden in the days gone by?"
But he rose like one bewildered, shook his head and glided past;
