VENGEFUL across the cold November moors, Loud with ancestral shame there came the bleak, Sad wind that shrieked, and answered with a shriek, Reverberant through lonely corridors. The old man heard it; and he heard, perforce, Words out of lips that were no more to speak -- Words of the past that shook the old man's cheek Like dead, remembered footsteps on old floors. And then there were the leaves that plagued him so! The brown, thin leaves that on the stones outside Skipped with a freezing whisper. Now and then They stopped, and stayed there -- just to let him know How dead they were; but if the old man cried, They fluttered off like withered souls of men. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY BEFORE BANNOCKBURN by ROBERT BURNS THE SNOW-STORM by RALPH WALDO EMERSON THE SUPPLIANT by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE THE PRAYER PERFECT by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY THE MITHERLESS BAIRN by WILLIAM THOM PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 7. AL-MAUMIN by EDWIN ARNOLD ON THE PRAIRIE by HERBERT BATES |