MARCH TWILIGHT

Black with a batter of mud

Stippled with silvery pools

Stands the pavement at the street-end;

And the gutter snow is gone

From cobble and runnelling curb;

And no longer the ramping wind

Is rattling the rusty signs;

And moted and soft and misty

Hangs the sunlight over the cross-streets,

And the home-bound crowds of the city

Walk in a flood of gold.

And suddenly out of the dusk

There comes the ancient question:

Can it be that I have lived

In earlier worlds unknown?

Or is it that somewhere deep

In this husk that men call Me

Are kennelled a motley kin

I never shall know or name,—

Are housed still querulous ghosts

That sigh and awaken and move,

And sleep once more?