Littell's Living Age/Volume 125/Issue 1608/The Hut

by Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier

THE HUT.

FROM THEOPHILE GAUTIER.

Under thick trees, about it swaying,
A humped-backed hovel crouches low;
The rooftree bends — the walls are fraying,
And on the threshold mosses grow.

Each window-pane is masked by shutters,
Still, as around the mouth in frost
The warm breath rises up and flutters,
Life lingers here — not wholly lost.

One curl of silver smoke is twining
Its pale threads with the silent air.
To tell God that there yet is shining
A soul-spark in that ruined lair.

Cornhill Magazine.F. H. Doyle