He pauses before a deserted house by the roadside.

Through iron-weeds and roses And ancient beech and oak, Old porches it discloses Above the weeds and roses, The drizzling raindrops soak.

Neglected walks a-tangle With dodder-strangled grass; And every mildewed angle Heaped with dead leaves that spangle The paths that round it pass.

The creatures there that bury And hide within its rooms, And spidered closets—very Dim with gray webs—will hurry Out when the twilight glooms.

Owls roost in room and basement; Bats haunt its hearth and porch, And through some paneless casement Flit, in the moon's enlacement, Or firefly's twinkling torch.

There is a sense of frost here, And gusts that sigh away.— What was it that was lost here? Long, long ago was lost here?— Can anybody say?

My foot perhaps would startle Some bird that mopes within; Some owl above its portal, That stares upon the mortal As on a thing of sin.

The rutty road winds by it This side the dusty toll.— Why do I stop to eye it? My heart can not deny it— The house is like my soul.