Chapter II

I stood in the summer morning Under a cavernous yew; The sun was gently climbing, And the scents rose after the dew.

I saw the wise old mansion, Like a cow in the noon-day heat, Stand in a lake of shadows That rippled about its feet.

Its windows were oriel and latticed, Lowly and wide and fair; And its chimneys like clustered pillars Stood up in the thin blue air.

White doves, like the thoughts of a lady, Haunted it all about; With a train of green and blue comets The peacock went marching stout.

The birds in the trees were singing A song as old as the world, Of love and green leaves and sunshine, And winter folded and furled.

They sang that never was sadness But it melted and passed away; They sang that never was darkness But in came the conquering day.

And I knew that a maiden somewhere, In a low oak-panelled room, In a nimbus of shining garments, An aureole of white-browed bloom,

Looked out on the garden dreamy, And knew not it was old; Looked past the gray and the sombre, Saw but the green and the gold,

III.

I stood in the gathering twilight, In a gently blowing wind; Then the house looked half uneasy, Like one that was left behind.

The roses had lost their redness, And cold the grass had grown; At roost were the pigeons and peacock, The sun-dial seemed a head-stone.

The world by the gathering twilight In a gauzy dusk was clad; Something went into my spirit And made me a little sad.

Grew and gathered the twilight, It filled my heart and brain; The sadness grew more than sadness, It turned to a gentle pain.

Browned and brooded the twilight, Pervaded, absorbed the calm, Till it seemed for some human sorrows There could not be any balm.

IV.

Then I knew that, up a staircase Which untrod will yet creak and shake, Deep in a distant chamber A ghost was coming awake--

In the growing darkness growing, Growing till her eyes appear Like spots of a deeper twilight, But more transparent clear:

Thin as hot air up-trembling, Thin as sun-molten crape, An ethereal shadow of something Is taking a certain shape;

A shape whose hands hang listless, Let hang its disordered hair; A shape whose bosom is heaving But draws not in the air.

And I know, what time the moonlight On her nest of shadows will sit, Out on the dim lawn gliding That shadowy shadow will flit.

V.

The moon is dreaming upward From a sea of cloud and gleam; She looks as if she had seen me Never but in a dream.

Down the stair I know she is coming, Bare-footed, lifting her train; It creaks not--she hears it creaking Where once there was a brain.

Out at yon side-door she's coming, With a timid glance right and left; Her look is hopeless yet eager, The look of a heart bereft.

Across the lawn she is flitting, Her thin gown feels the wind; Are her white feet bending the grasses? Her hair is lifted behind!

VI.

Shall I stay to look on her nearer? Would she start and vanish away? Oh, no, she will never see me, Stand I near as I may!

It is not this wind she is feeling, Not this cool grass below; 'Tis the wind and the grass of an evening A hundred years ago.

She sees no roses darkling, No stately hollyhocks dim; She is only thinking and dreaming The garden, the night, and him,

The unlit windows behind her, The timeless dial-stone, The trees, and the moon, and the shadows A hundred years agone!

'Tis a night for a ghostly lover To haunt the best-loved spot: Is he come in his dreams to this garden? I gaze, but I see him not.