"I HEAR the piano playing -- Just as a ghost might play." "-- O, but what are you saying? There's no piano to-day; Their old one was sold and broken; Years past it went amiss." "-- I heard it, or shouldn't have spoken: A strange house, this! "I catch some undertone here, From some one out of sight." "-- Impossible; we are alone here, And shall be through the night." "-- The parlour-door -- what stirred it?" "-- No one: no soul's in range." "-- But, anyhow, I heard it, And it seems strange! "Seek my own room I cannot -- A figure is on the stair!" "-- What figure? Nay, I scan not Any one lingering there. A bough outside is waving, And that's its shade by the moon." "-- Well, all is strange! I am craving Strength to leave soon." "-- Ah, maybe you've some vision Of showings beyond our sphere; Some sight, sense, intuition Of what once happened here? The house is old; they've hinted It once held two love-thralls, And they may have imprinted Their dreams on its walls? "They were -- I think 'twas told me -- Queer in their works and ways; The teller would often hold me With weird tales of those days. Some folk can not abide here, But we -- we do not care Who loved, laughed, wept, or died here, Knew joy, or despair." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BALLAD OF THE LORDS OF OLD TIME by FRANCOIS VILLON CLEVER TOM CLINCH GOING TO BE HANGED by JONATHAN SWIFT THE SULTANA by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH CLIO, NINE ECLOGUES IN HONOUR OF NINE VIRTUES: 6. OF PATIENCE by WILLIAM BASSE POETRY: WHAT IS IT? by LEVI BISHOP DEATH OF CHILDHOOD BELIEFS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |