Tattered, in ragged raiment of the rain, The Night arrives. Outside the window there He stands and, streaming, taps upon the pane; Or, crouching down beside the cellar-stair, Letting his hat-brim drain,...
I have heard the wind on a winter's night, When the snow-cold moon looked icily through My window's flickering firelight, Where the frost his witchery drew:...
Vague, vague 'neath darkling waves, With emerald-curving caves For the arched skies, Red-walled with dark dull gold The Nixes' city old Deep-glimmering lies....
Here on this jutting headland, where the trees Spread a dusk carpet for the sun to cast And count his golden guineas on, we'll stay; For hence is the best prospect of the Falls,...
Low, swallow-swept and gray, Between the orchard and the spring, All its wide windows overflowing hay, And crannied doors a-swing, The old barn stands to-day.
Its rotting fence one scarcely sees Through sumac and wild blackberries, Thick elder and the bramble-rose, Big ox-eyed daisies where the bees Hang droning in repose.
The frogs still cry, "Knee-deep! knee-deep!" Among its starlit pools, When dark the woodland lies asleep, And dusk its water cools: The fireflies round its bank of ferns Hang will-o'-wisps for lamps,...
Dormered and verandaed, cool, Locust-girdled, on the hill; Stained with weather-wear, and dull- Streak'd with lichens; every sill Thresholding the beautiful;
Spurge and sea-pink, hyssop blue, Dragonhead of purple hue; Catnip, frosted green and gray, With blue butterflies a-sway, These may point you out the way.
There was moonlight in the garden and the chirr and chirp of crickets; There was scent of pink and peony and deep syringa thickets, When adown the pathway whitely, where the firefly glimmered brightly,...
On the barren hillside lone he sat; On his head he wore a tattered hat; In his hand he bore a crooked staff; Never heard I laughter like his laugh, On the barren hillside, thistle-hoar. ...
An old lane, an old gate, an old house by a tree; A wild wood, a wild brook they will not let me be: In boyhood I knew them, and still they call to me.
Down deep in my heart's core I hear them and my eyes...
Quaint and forgotten, by an unused road, An old house stands: around its doors the dense Blue iron-weeds grow high; The chipmunks make a highway of its fence; And on its sunken flagstones slug and toad...
Five rotten gables look upon Wan rotting roses and rank weeds, Old iron gates on posts of stone, Dim dingles where the vermin breeds. Five rotten gables black appear Above bleak yews and cedars sad,...
Weeds and dead leaves, and leaves the Autumn stains With hues of rust and rose whence moisture weeps; Gnarl'd thorns, from which the knotted haw-fruit rains On paths the gray moss heaps. ...
Red-Winding from the sleepy town, One takes the lone, forgotten lane Straight through the hills. A brush-bird brown Bubbles in thorn-flowers, sweet with rain, Where breezes bend the gleaming grain,...
An old, lost lane; where can it lead? To stony pastures, where the weed Purples its plume, or sails its seed: And from one knoll, the vetch makes green, Trailing its glimmering ribbon on,...