GHOSTS

Low, weed-climbed cliffs, o'er which at noon

The sea-mists swoon:

Wind-twisted pines, through which the crow

Goes winging slow:

Dim fields, the sower never sows,

Or reaps or mows:

And near the sea a ghostly house of stone

Where all is old and lone.

A garden, falling in decay,

Where statues gray

Peer, broken, out of tangled weed

And thorny seed:

Satyr and Nymph, that once made love

By walk and grove:

And, near a fountain, shattered, green with mold,

A sundial, lichen-old.

Like some sad life bereft,

To musing left,

The house stands: love and youth

Both gone, in sooth:

But still it sits and dreams:

And round it seems

Some memory of the past, still young and fair,

Haunting each crumbling stair.

And suddenly one dimly sees,

Come through the trees,

A woman, like a wild moss-rose:

A man, who goes

Softly: and by the dial

They kiss a while:

Then drowsily the mists blow round them, wan,

And they, like ghosts, are gone.