IV.

  Upheave, black mould, and totter all
    The ruin down! 
  Fall, monumental pillars, fall,
  Upon her grave!  Above her breast
    May ivy creep,
  And roses blow!  I choose to rest.

THE HOUSE OF YOUTH.

  The rough north winds have left their icy caves
    To growl and grope for prey
      Upon the murky sea;
  The lonely sea-gull skims the sullen waves
    All the gray winter day.

  The mottled sand-bird runneth up and down,
    Amongst the creaking sedge,
      Along the crusted beach;
  The time-stained houses of the sea-walled town
    Seem tottering on its edge.

  An ancient dwelling, in this ancient place,
    Stands in a garden drear,
      A wreck with other wrecks;
  The Past is there, but no one sees a face
    Within, from year to year.

  The wiry rose-trees scratch the window-pane;
    The window rattles loud;
      The wind beats at the door,
  But never gets an answer back again,
    The silence is so proud.

  The last that lived there was an evil man;
    A child the last that died,
      Upon the mother’s breast. 
  It seemed to die by some mysterious ban;
    Its grave is by the side

  Of an old tree, whose notched and scanty leaves
    Repeat the tale of woe,
      And quiver day and night,
  Till the snow cometh, and a cold shroud weaves,
    Whiter than that below.

  This time of year a woman wanders there—­
    They say from distant lands: 
      She wears a foreign dress,
  With jewels on her breast, and her fair hair
    In braided coils and bands.

  The ancient dwelling and the garden drear
    At night know something more: 
      Without her foreign dress
  Or blazing gems, this woman stealeth near
    The threshold of the door.

  The shadow strikes against the window-pane;
    She thrusts the thorns away: 
      Her eyes peer through the glass,
  And down the glass her great tears drip, like rain,
    In the gray winter day.

  The moon shines down the dismal garden track,
    And lights the little mound;
      But when she ventures there,
  The black and threatening branches wave her back,
    And guard the ghostly ground.

  What is the story of this buried Past? 
    Were all its doors flung wide,
      For us to search its rooms,
  And we to see the race, from first to last,
    And how they lived and died:—­

  Still would it baffle and perplex the brain. 
    But show this bitter truth: 
      Man lives not in the past: 
  None but a woman ever comes again
    Back to the House of Youth!

THE HOUSE BY THE SEA.

  To-night I do the bidding of a ghost,
    A ghost that knows my misery;
  In the lone dark I hear his wailing boast,
    “Now shalt thou speak with me.”