Iv

I know long-angled on its floors, Where windows face the anxious east, The moonshine pours White squares of glitter and, at least, Gives glimmer to its whispering halls: Its corridors, Sleep-tapestried, are guled with bars Of moonlight: by its wasted walls Crouch shadows: and,--where streaked dusts lay Their undisturbed, deep gray Upon its stairs,--dim, vision-footed, glide Faint gossamer gleams, like visible sighs, As to and fro, athwart the skies,-- Wind-swung against the moon outside,-- The twisted branches sway Of one great tree; I stand below, And listen now, Hearing a murmur come and go Through its gnarled boughs; remembering how Shady this chestnut made her room, And sweet, in June, with plumes of bloom; And how the broad and gusty flues Of the old house sang when the rain let loose Its winds, and each flue seemed a hoarse, Sonorous throat, filled with the storm's wild boom, And growled carousal; goblin tunes The hylas pipe to rainy moons Of March; or, in the afternoons Of summer, singing in their course,-- Where blossoms drip,--all wet of back,-- The crickets drone in avenues Of locusts leading to the gate. And in the dark here where I wait Meseems I hear the silence creep And crepitate From hall to hall; as one in sleep I hear, yet hear not; feel that there Her soul walks, waking on each stair Strange echoes; and the stealthy crack Of old and warping floors: I seem To follow her; and in a dream To see, yet see not; in the black That drapes each room, my mind informs With shapes, that hide behind each door And fling from closets phantom arms.