HALLO!

“Hallo, hallo!” impatiently he cried,

And I replied,

Sleepily, “Hallo — hallo!”

No sound then; and I stretched

My hand for the receiver, all my nerves

Tingling and listening.

My hand clutched nothing, and I lit

The candle — strange!

I could have sworn it was the shouting wire....

But no!

Besides, a bare and unfamiliar room

And he, why, long-forgotten, maybe dead.

Yet all around,

Filling the silence up with tiny sound,

A million tremulous thin echoings,

“Hallo — hallo —

Hallo!”