Ghosts

The dead return to us continually; Not at the void of night, as fables feign, In some lone spot where murdered bones have lain Wailing for vengeance to the passer-by; But in the merry clamour and full cry Of the brave noon, our dead whom we have slain And in forgotten graves hidden in vain, Rise up and stand beside us terribly.

Sick with the beauty of their dear decay We conjure them with laughters onerous And drunkenness of labour; yet not thus May we absolve ourselves of yesterday-- We cannot put those clinging arms away, Nor those glad faces yearning over us.

Mr. Hooker also includes in this volume a number of Turns, which he describes as "a new fixed form: Seven lines, in any rhythm, isometric and of not more than four feet; Rhyming AbacbcA, the first line and the last a Refrain; the Idea (as the name suggests) to Turn upon the recurrence of the Refrain at the end with a different sense from that which it bears at the beginning." For example: