OFTEN when I cannot sleep, in my dark and quiet room, ugly phantoms round me creep, grinning at me in the gloom. Oft they come in grisly bands, to my sorrow and my shame, beckoning with fleshless hands, clanking chains and breathing flame. Many sinful things I've done, in the days that are gone by; that advantage might be won, I have sprung the vicious lie. Adding to this wad of mine, I've been tricky, mean and low, and I skinned a learned divine in a horse trade, long ago. In my scheming for the kale, at no trifles would I stop; when I had some spuds for sale, all the biggest were on top. I've committed many crimes; I confess it, now I'm gray; I have voted seven times on the same election day. And when sleep from me recedes, and I lie in bed awake, ghosts of all these evil deeds come and fill me with an ache. Man of his achievements boasts, of the "killings" he has made; but he can't escape the ghosts—spectres which are never laid. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...COMFORT [TO A YOUTH THAT HAD LOST HIS LOVE] by ROBERT HERRICK GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER HILL BATTLE by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES SOMETHING BEYOND by MARY CLEMMER AMES HUDSON ON HIS BEING [OR, HAVING] ARRIVED AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE by JOHN MILTON SONNET WRITTEN IN THE FALL OF 1914: 1 by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY THE LAST MAN: SUBTERRANEAN CITY by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THOU LIGHT OF LIFE by BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX |