On a night when the moon gives no light, clouds drift from the southwest and the wind keeps stirring a yew tree outside the window. The speaker watches and listens as the tree becomes as restless as the wind itself. That restlessness turns inward: he remembers other winds that muttered, raved, nosed at dead leaves, or shouted around the orchard, snapping branches. The mood is uneasy and brooding, but also quietly fascinated. The yew stands between the speaker and the west, casting a shadow so deep it darkens the darkness beyond thought and sense. Usually the moon might make that darkness bright, almost heavenly, but tonight it withholds light. The absence feels heavy: the night is alive with sound and movement, yet remains stubbornly black, leaving the speaker alone with memory and a sense of something vast just outside the window.
The Yew — Summary
The moon gave no light. The clouds rode slowly over, broad and white, From the soft south west. The wind, that cannot rest, Soothed and then waked the darkness of the yew Until the tree was restless too.
Of all the winds I knew I thought, and how they muttered in the yew, Or raved under the eaves, Or nosed the fallen dry leaves, Or with harsh voice holloa'd the orchard round, With snapped limbs littering the ground.
And I thought how the yew Between the window and the west his shadow threw, Grave and immense, Darkening the dark past thought and sense, And how the moon would make the darkness heavenly bright: But the moon gave no light.