11.

Through iron-weeds and roses And bronzing beech and oak, Old porches it discloses, Above the briars and roses Fall's feeble sunbeams soak.

Neglected walks that tangle The dodder-strangled grass; Its chimney shows one angle Heaped with dead leaves that spangle The paths that round it pass.

The early mists that bury And hide them in its rooms, From spider closets—very Dim with old webs—will hurry Out in the raining glooms.

They haunt each stair and basement; They stand on hearth and porch; Lean from each paneless casement, Or in the moonlight's lacement Fly with a phantom torch.

There is a sense of frost here; And gusts that sob away Of something that was lost here, Long, long ago was lost here, But what, they can not say.

There croons no owl to startle Despondency within; No raven o'er its portal To scare the daring mortal And guard its cellared sin.

The creaking road descries it This side the dusty toll; The farmer passing eyes it; None stops t' philosophize it, This symbol of a soul.