THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

The shadows sit and stand within its door

Like uninvited guests and poor,

And all the long, hot summer day

A dry green locust whirs its roundelay,

And the shadows halt at the door.

The sheeted iron upon the roof

Stretches its weary hide and cracks;

The spider weaves his windy woof

In dingy closet cracks,

And all a something lacks.

The freckled snake crawls o'er the floor,

Tongues at the shadows in the door,

And where the musty mosses run

Basks in the sun.

The children of the fathers sleep

Beneath the melancholy pines;

Earth-worms within grim skulls forever creep

And the glow-worm shines;

The orchards in the meadow deep

Lift up their stained, gnarled arms,

Mossed, lichened where limp lizards peep.

No youth swells up to make them leap

And cry against the storms;

No blossom lulls their age asleep,

Each wind brings sad alarms.

Big-bellied apples gold or bell-round pears

No maiden gathers now;

The moistures drip great reeking tears

From each old, crippled bough.

The orchards are yellow and solitary,

The winds beat down their hands;

The sunlight is sad and the moonlight is dreary,

The hum of the country is lonesome and weary,

And the bees go by in bands

To other happier lands.

The grasses are rotting in walk and in bower;

The orchards smell dank and rank

As a chamber where lay for a lonely hour

A corpse unclad in the taper's glower,

Chill, white, and lank.

So the bees go by in murmurous bands,

Drowsily wand'ring to happier lands

Where the lilies draggle the bank.

In the desolate halls are lying,

Gold, blood-red, and browned,

Shriveled leaves of Autumn dying,

And the shadows o'er them flying

Turn them‘ round and‘ round,

Make a dreary sound

Thro’ the echoing chambers crying

In the haunted house.

Gazing down in her white shroud

From the edging cloud

Comes at night the dimpled moon,

Comes, and like a ghost is gone

‘ Neath the flying cloud

O'er the haunted house.