In a Georgia Swamp

Heavy spanish moss has bearded the live-oaks.
They are old; they are sad and very cold.
In the cypress swamp they stand and seem to mould
Amid knuckled knees and branches.

Winter has killed the water: it lies meaningless.
And the negro cabins with closed doors are windowless.
A white, bony horse hunched under the barn-eaves
Is surely the one that Death rode hither upon
And then abandoned to bleak wind and weather;
And poverty's skin, stretched taut over his skeleton,
Can hardly hold thin rib and rib together.

Heavy Spanish moss, and winter, and poverty,
Are all that weary heart and eye can see,
Except a brown sweet mocking-bird descanting
Upon numb nature's brooding despondency.