But what of those—the dead who live!
The living dead, whose lot
Is still to love—ah, God forgive!—
To live and love, forgot!—
8
The storm is heard sounding wildly with wind and hail.
The night is wild with rain and sleet.
Each loose-warped casement claps and groans.
I hear the plangent forest beat
The tempest with long blatant moans
As of despair, defeat.
And sitting here beyond the storm,
Alone within the lonely house,
It seems that some mesmeric charm
Hangs over all.—Why, even the mouse,
That gnawed, has come to harm.
And in the silence, stolen o'er
All things, I strangely seem to fear
Myself—that, opening yon door,
I'd find my dead self drawing near,
With face that once I wore.
The stairway creaks with ghostly gusts.
The flue moans—'tis a gorgon throat
Of wailing winds. Ancestral dusts,—
That yonder Indian war-gear coat
With gray and spectral crusts,—
Are trembled down.—Or can it be,
That he who wore it in the dance,
Or battle, now fills shadowy
Its wampumed skins? And shakes his lance
And warrior plume at me?—
Mere fancy!—Yet those curtains toss
Mysteriously as if some dark
Hand moved them.—And I'd fear to cross
The shadow there where lies that spark—
A glow-worm sunk in moss.