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.
12.
Though the dog-tooth violet come
With the shower,
And the wild-bee haunt and hum
Every flower,
We shall never wend as when
Love laughed leading us from men
Over violet vale and glen,
Where the red-bird sang an hour,
And we heard the partridge drum.
Here October shadows pray,
Till one stills
Joyance, where for buried May
Sob the rills:
So love's vision has arisen
Of the long ago: I listen—
Memory, tears in eyes that glisten
Points but Indiana hills
Fading dark-blue far away.