There is a sorrow in the wind to-night
That haunteth me; she, like a penitent,
Heaps on rent hair the snow’s thin ashes white,
And moans and moans, her swaying body bent.
And Superstition, gliding softly, shakes
With wasted hands, that vainly grope and seek,
The rustling curtains; of each cranny makes
Wild, ghostly lips that, wailing, fain would speak.
QUESTIONINGS
Now that wan sunsets, wintery
With icy gold, paint bleak the sky;
Now nights are starless utterly,
And snow and sleet cut moaning by,
One’s memory keeps one company,
And sorrow puts its “when” and “why.”
Such inquisition, when alone,
Leads on to ways of doubt and dread,
Despair has miled with many a stone,
Carved with the faces of our dead,
Stamped on whose brows we read, “Unknown!
No further look, nor seek to tread.”
And, oh! that weariness of soul
That leans upon our dead, the clod
And air have taken, as a whole,
Through some mysterious period!—
Life! with its questions of control!
Death! with its unguessed laws of God!
FRAGMENTS
I
The curtains of my couch sway heavily:
’Tis death, who parts the curtains of my soul.—
Sleep, like a gray expression of ghost lips
Heard through the moonlight of a haunted room,
Seems near yet far away. Would God ’twere day!