* THE GHOST *

Night-foundered to the ruin he came

Nor recked of its uncanny fame;

A haunt of slumber opened here,

And weariness, that casts out fear,

His footsteps led.

The moon swam low; the woods were still;

Dog foxes barked upon the hill;

With zig-zag wing a flitter-mouse

Flew in and out the haunted house

And overhead.

Within, decaying wood and lime

Lifted their incense up to time;

The foot fell hollow; echoes woke,

And whispering, half-heard voices spoke

Behind the dark.

Aloft, the drowsy wanderer found

A chamber far above the ground;

Whose casement, rusty-ironed and high,

Gaped ivy-clad upon the sky,

Starlit and stark.

White-fingered now the moonbeams ran

To ripple on the resting man.

He saw their stealthy silver creep

As it would drown him in his sleep

With splendour mild.

And then a subtle shadow moved,

A spirit that the dead had loved:

For wanly limned against the gloom

Of that forbid, forgotten room

There ran a child.

She twinkled in her candid shift,

Light as a moth, so silent, swift,

And peeped and peered for what might be

Hid in that ancient nursery —

A babe of joy.

But something called the busy wight:

She faded sudden from his sight;

And, as her little glimmer paled

Like a glass bell, the ghostling wailed,

“Where is my toy?”