PHANTOMS

This was her home; one mossy gable thrust

Above the cedars and the locust trees:

This was her home, whose beauty now is dust,

A lonely memory for melodies

The wild birds sing, the wild birds and the bees.

Here every evening is a prayer: no boast

Or ruin of sunset makes the wan world wroth;

Here, through the twilight, like a pale flower's ghost,

A drowsy flutter, flies the tiger-moth;

And dusk spreads darkness like a dewy cloth.

In vagabond velvet, on the placid day,

A stain of crimson, lolls the butterfly;

The south wind sows with ripple and with ray

The pleasant waters; and the gentle sky

Looks on the homestead like a quiet eye.

Their melancholy quaver, lone and low,

When day is done, the gray tree-toads repeat:

The whippoorwills, far in the afterglow,

Complain to silence: and the lightnings beat,

In one still cloud, glimmers of golden heat.

He comes not yet: not till the dusk is dead,

And all the western glow is far withdrawn;

Not till,— a sleepy mouth love's kiss makes red,—

The baby bud opes in a rosy yawn,

Breathing sweet guesses at the dreamed-of dawn.

When in the shadows, like a rain of gold,

The fireflies stream steadily; and bright

Along the moss the glowworm, as of old,

A crawling sparkle — like a crooked light

In smoldering vellum — scrawls a square of night,—

Then will he come; and she will lean to him,—

She,— the sweet phantom,— memory of that place,—

Between the starlight and his eyes; so dim

With suave control and soul-compelling grace,

He cannot help but speak her, face to face.