THE cold light dies, the candles glow, The wind whirls down the bare allée Outside my gleaming window-panes The phantom populations go, Blown, amid leaves, above, below. Yet these are solid German folk Outside, beneath the thinning planes And the reflections that awoke At candle time upon my panes Are misty, unsubstantial gleams. Only outside, obscurity, The waning light, the cold blue beams And rafts of shadow trick the eye; So that the frozen passers-by Look ghosts—and only real seems My candle lighted, lonely place, The gleaming windows and your face Looking in likeness from the wall Where the fantastic shadows fall. ... Now the ghosts pass, the cold wind cries, The leaves sift downwards, the world dies, But in the shadows, lo! your eyes. |