Outside the house an ash-tree hung its terrible whips,
And at night when the wind arose, the lash of the tree 
Shrieked and slashed the wind, as a ship?s 
Weird rigging in a storm shrieks hideously. 
 
Within the house two voices arose in anger, a slender lash
Whistling delirious rage, and the dreadful sound 
Of a thick lash booming and bruising, until it drowned 
The other voice in a silence of blood, ?neath the noise of the ash.