See this house, how dark it is Beneath its vast-boughed trees! Not one trembling leaflet cries To that Watcher in the skies -- 'Remove, remove thy searching gaze, Innocent of heaven's ways, Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright, On secrets hidden from sight.' 'Secrets,' sighs the night-wind, 'Vacancy is all I find; Every keyhole I have made Wails a summons, faint and sad, No voice ever answers me, Only vacancy.' 'Once, once. . .' the cricket shrills, And far and near the quiet fills With its tiny voice, and then Hush falls again. Mute shadows creeping slow Mark how the hours go. Every stone is mouldering slow. And the least winds that blow Some minutest atom shake, Some fretting ruin make In roof and walls. How black it is Beneath these thick-boughed trees! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SOLILOQUY; OCCASIONED BY THE CHIRPING OF A GRASSHOPPER by WALTER HARTE A PAUSE by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THE LAST LOOK O' HAME by HEW AINSLIE ROSA MUNDI by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN MAXIMS FOR THE OLD HOUSE: THE KEEPING-ROOM by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH THE GLEN by JOHN BROWN (1810-1882) THE BALLAD OF JEAN LAFITTE by LOIA C. CHEANEY |