Barguest

All in the wild and windy night
    I heard the treetops moan,
I heard the drift of scurrying leaves
    Through the bleak garden blown.
Across the bare and empty fields,
    Adown the lonely moor,
Came Barguest padding through the dark
    And whining at the door.

Grey as a wreath of autumn mist
    Or smoke that skyward rolled
From moorland altars long ago
    To strange dim gods of old:
Dark as the dark and starless night
    Where loud the storm-winds wail,
Came Barguest through the waste of years,
    The midnight and the gale.

All in the mid mirk o' the night
    I heard the wild wind cry
The burthen of its ancient song
    Between the moor and sky, —
The wind that blows if good or ill
    It bodes to me or mine,
That thus I hear beside my door,
    The Grey Dog snuff and whine.