[SECTION I. THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD HOUSE]
[PROLOGUE]
[PART I. THE HOUSE]
[Bedroom]
[Library]
[Indian Skull]
[Old Nursery]
[The Back Stairs]
[The Wall Cabinet]
[The Cellar]
[The Front Door]
[PART II. THE ATTIC]
[In the Attic]
[The Calendar in the Attic]
[The Hoopskirt]
[The Little Chair]
[In the Dark Corner]
[The Toy Cabinet]
[The Yardstick]
[PART III. THE LAWN]
[The Three Oaks]
[An Oak]
[Another Oak]
[The Old Barn]
[The Well]
[The Trees]
[Vision]
[Epilogue]
[SECTION II. SYMPHONIES]
[BLUE SYMPHONY]
[SOLITUDE IN THE CITY (SYMPHONY IN BLACK AND GOLD)]
[I. Words at Midnight]
[II. The Evening Rain]
[III. Street of Sorrows]
[IV. Song in the Darkness]
[GREEN SYMPHONY]
[GOLDEN SYMPHONY]
[WHITE SYMPHONY]
[MIDSUMMER DREAMS (SYMPHONY IN WHITE AND BLUE)]
[ORANGE SYMPHONY]
[RED SYMPHONY]
[VIOLET SYMPHONY]
[GREY SYMPHONY]
[POPPIES OF THE RED YEAR (A SYMPHONY IN SCARLET)]
SECTION I
THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD HOUSE
PROLOGUE
The house that I write of, faces the north:
No sun ever seeks
Its six white columns,
The nine great windows of its face.
It fronts foursquare the winds.
Under the penthouse of the veranda roof,
The upper northern rooms
Gloom outwards mournfully.
Staring Ionic capitals
Peer in them:
Owl-like faces.
On winter nights
The wind, sidling round the corner,
Shoots upwards
With laughter.
The windows rattle as if some one were in them wishing to get out
And ride upon the wind.
Doors lead to nowhere:
Squirrels burrow between the walls.
Closets in every room hang open,
Windows are stared into by uncivil ancient trees.
In the middle of the upper hallway
There is a great circular hole
Going up to the attic.
A wooden lid covers it.
All over the house there is a sense of futility;
Of minutes dragging slowly
And repeating
Some worn-out story of broken effort and desire.
PART I. THE HOUSE
BEDROOM
The clump of jessamine
Softly beneath the rain
Rocks its golden flowers.
In this room my father died:
His bed is in the corner.
No one has slept in it
Since the morning when he wakened
To meet death's hands at his heart.
I cannot go to this room,
Without feeling something big and angry
Waiting for me
To throw me on the bed,
And press its thumbs in my throat.
The clump of jessamine
Without, beneath the rain,
Rocks its golden flowers.
LIBRARY
Stuffy smell of mouldering leather,
Tattered arm-chairs, creaking doors,
Books that slovenly elbow each other,
Sown with children's scrawls and long
Worn out by contact with generations:
Tattered tramps displaying yourselves—
"We, though you broke our backs, did not complain."
If I had my way,
I would take you out and bury you quickly,
Or give you to the clean fire.
INDIAN SKULL
Some one dug this up and brought it
To our house.
In the dark upper hall, I see it dimly,
Looking at me through the glass.
Where dancers have danced, and weary people
Have crept to their bedrooms in the morning,
Where sick people have tossed all night,
Where children have been born,
Where feet have gone up and down,
Where anger has blazed forth, and strange looks have passed,
It has rested, watching meanwhile
The opening and shutting of doors,
The coming and going of people,
The carrying out of coffins.
Earth still clings to its eye-sockets,
It will wait, till its vengeance is accomplished.
OLD NURSERY
In the tired face of the mirror
There is a blue curtain reflected.
If I could lift the reflection,
Peer a little beyond, I would see
A boy crying
Because his sister is ill in another room
And he has no one to play with:
A boy listlessly scattering building blocks,
And crying,
Because no one will build for him the palace of Fairy Morgana.
I cannot lift the curtain:
It is stiff and frozen.
THE BACK STAIRS
In the afternoon
When no one is in the house,
I suddenly hear dull dragging feet
Go fumbling down those dark back stairs,
That climb up twisting,
As if they wanted no one to see them.
Beating a dirge upon the bare planks
I hear those feet and the creak of a long-locked door.
My mother often went
Up and down those selfsame stairs,
From the room where by the window
She would sit all day and listlessly
Look on the world that had destroyed her,
She would go down in the evening
To the room where she would sleep,
Or rather, not sleep, but all night
Lie staring fiercely at the ceiling.
In the afternoon
When no one is in the house:
I suddenly hear dull dragging feet
Beating out their futile tune,
Up and down those dark back stairs,
But there is no one in the shadows.
THE WALL CABINET
Above the steep back stairs
So high that only a ladder can come to it,
There is a wall cabinet hidden away.
No one ever unlocks it;
The key is lost, the door is barred,
It is shut and still.
Some say, a previous tenant
Filled its shelves with rows of bottles,
Bottles of spirit, filled with spiders.
I do not know.
Above the sleepy still back stairs,
It watches, shut and still.
THE CELLAR
Faintly lit by a high-barred grating,
The low/hung cellar,
Flattens itself under the house.
In one corner
There is a little door,
So low, it can scarcely be seen.
Beyond,
There is a narrow room,
One must feel for the walls in the dark.
One shrinks to go
To the end of it,
Feeling the smooth cold wall.
Why did the builders who made this house,
Stow one room away like this?
THE FRONT DOOR
It was always the place where our farewells were taken,
When we travelled to the north.
I remember there was one who made some journey,
But did not come back.
Many years they waited for him,
At last the one who wished the most to see him,
Was carried out of this selfsame door in death.
Since then all our family partings
Have been at another door.
PART II. THE ATTIC
IN THE ATTIC
Dust hangs clogged so thick
The air has a dusty taste:
Spider threads cling to my face,
From the broad pine-beams.
There is nothing living here,
The house below might be quite empty,
No sound comes from it.
The old broken trunks and boxes,
Cracked and dusty pictures,
Legless chairs and shattered tables,
Seem to be crying
Softly in the stillness
Because no one has brushed them.
No one has any use for them, now,
Yet I often wonder
If these things are really dead:
If the old trunks never open
Letting out grey flapping things at twilight?
If it is all as safe and dull
As it seems?
Why then is the stair so steep,
Why is the doorway always locked,
Why does nobody ever come?
THE CALENDAR IN THE ATTIC
I wonder how long it has been
Since this old calendar hung here,
With my birthday date upon it,
Nothing else—not a word of writing—
Not a mark of any hand.
Perhaps it was my father
Who left it thus
For me to see.
Perhaps my mother
Smiled as she saw it;
But in later years did not smile.
If I could tear it down,
From the wall
Somehow
I would be content.
But I am afraid, as a little child, to touch it.
THE HOOPSKIRT
In the night when all are sleeping,
Up here a tiny old dame comes tripping,
Looking for her lost hoopskirt.
My great-grandaunt—I never saw her—
Her ghost doesn't know me from another,
She stalks up the attic stairs angrily.
The dust sets her sneezing and coughing,
By the trunk she is limping and hopping,
But alas—the trunk is locked.
What's an old dame to do, anyway!
Must stay in a mouldy grave day on day,
Or go to heaven out of style.
In the night when all are snoring,
The old lady makes a dreadful clatter,
Going down the attic stairs.
What was that? A ghost or a burglar?
Oh, it was only the wind in the chimney,
Yes, and the attic door that slammed.
THE LITTLE CHAIR
I know not why, when I saw the little chair,
I suddenly desired to sit in it.
I know not why, when I sat in the little chair,
Everything changed, and life came back to me.
I am convinced no one at all has grown up in the house,
The break that I dreamed, itself was a dream and is broken.
I will sit in the little chair and wait,
Till the others come looking after me.
And if it is after nightfall they will come,
So much the better.
For the little chair holds me as tightly as death;
And rocking in it, I can hear it whisper strange things.
IN THE DARK CORNER
I brush the dust from this old portrait:
Yes, it is the same face, exactly,
Why does it look at me still with such a look of hate?
I brush the dust from a heap of magazines:
Here there is all what you have written,
All that you struggled long years and went down to darkness for.
O God, to think what I am writing
Will be ever as this!
O God, to think that my own face
May some day glare from this dust!
THE TOY CABINET
By the old toy cabinet,
I stand and turn over dusty things:
Chessmen—card games—hoops and balls—
Toy rifles, helmets, swords,
In the far corner
A doll's tea-set in a box.
Where are you, golden child,
Who gave tea to your dolls and me?
The golden child is growing old,
Further than Rome or Babylon
From you have passed those foolish years.
She lives—she suffers—she forgets.
By the old toy cabinet,
I idly stand and awkwardly
Finger the lock of the tea-set box.
What matter—why should I look inside,
Perhaps it is empty after all!
Leave old things to the ghosts of old;
My stupid brain refuses thought,
I am maddened with a desire to weep.
THE YARDSTICK
Yardstick that measured out so many miles of cloth,
Yardstick that covered me,
I wonder do you hop of nights
Out to the still hill-cemetery,
And up and down go measuring
A clayey grave for me?