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Swamp Symphony

by Cristel Hastings

published in WEIRD TALES, March 1930

What do they croak about all the night long—

The frogs in the swamp—is it sorrow or song?

Who wields the baton as it marks the slow time

For the shadowy phantoms who dwell in the slime?

Do wraiths haunt the marshland and dance to the tunes

The wind in the reeds plays among the gray dunes?

And why does the moon hide her face in the fog

As shapes wrapped in darkness glide over the bog?

What is the sighing and moaning that sounds

Like thin vapor whispers from grass-matted mounds?

What stirs the glazed surface of waters long dead—

And what is that Thing without eyes in its head?

The clammy winds whimper and wail in their fright,

Making a dirge of the low sounds of night;

Loneliness grasps the thin throat of a ghost

And shakes till it rattles the bones of its host.

All through the shrill night the frogs drum their lay

And pipe the slow measures for shapes, dim and gray,

Until reckless dawn sends an arrow of light

To still the mad opera that haunted the night.