Phantoms

This was her home; one mossy gable thrustAbove the cedars and the locust trees:This was her home, whose beauty now is dust,A lonely memory for melodiesThe wild birds sing, the wild birds and the bees.

Here every evening is a prayer: no boastOr ruin of sunset makes the wan world wroth;Here, through the twilight, like a pale flower's ghost,A drowsy flutter, flies the tiger-moth;And dusk spreads darkness like a dewy cloth.

In vagabond velvet, on the placid day,A stain of crimson, lolls the butterfly;The south wind sows with ripple and with rayThe pleasant waters; and the gentle skyLooks on the homestead like a quiet eye.

Their melancholy quaver, lone and low,When day is done, the gray tree-toads repeat:The whippoorwills, far in the afterglow,Complain to silence: and the lightnings beat,In one still cloud, glimmers of golden heat.

He comes not yet: not till the dusk is dead,And all the western glow is far withdrawn;Not till,--a sleepy mouth love's kiss makes red,--The baby bud opes in a rosy yawn,Breathing sweet guesses at the dreamed-of dawn.

When in the shadows, like a rain of gold,The fireflies stream steadily; and brightAlong the moss the glowworm, as of old,A crawling sparkle--like a crooked lightIn smoldering vellum--scrawls a square of night,--

Then will he come; and she will lean to him,--She,--the sweet phantom,--memory of that place,--Between the starlight and his eyes; so dimWith suave control and soul-compelling grace,He cannot help but speak her, face to face.