| |
| WHEN you live alone, how you hear each sound! | |
| Should a mouse but scuttle along the ground | |
| And a loose board creak—There! was it a mouse? | |
| Or a ghost’s step through the house! | |
| |
| Strange! What fancies come in a crowd, | 5 |
| When your fire burns fast and your clock ticks loud. | |
| Outside, there’s a sudden lull in the rain, | |
| And—who tapp’d on the window-pane? | |
| |
| Only a wind-blown jasmine spray. | |
| I saw it was loosen’d yesterday: | 10 |
| But it’s odd, it’s odd how the fancy lingers; | |
| It seemed like a dead man’s fingers! | |
| |
| Dead; yes, dead. Oh! more than a year. | |
| And what should a dead man do down here, | |
| Tapping like that on my window-pane? | 15 |
| The freak of a foolish brain! | |
| |
| But the wind, the wind! Like a soul bereft | |
| Of reason, hopelessly lost and left, | |
| It wails and moans. Ah! Years ago | |
| A voice that I loved moan’d so. | 20 |
| |
| Where was that tragic echo caught? | |
| What ails the night? Or am I distraught? | |
| Should I bear the sight, if I saw appear— | |
| There are steps—hark!—drawing near…. | |
| |
| Steps indeed. Ah! but voices too. | 25 |
| Friends of mine—this is good of you! | |
| Quick! Come in from the wind and the rain: | |
| Thank God! I’m alive again. | |
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