The Old House.

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
    Silent as lichens lie.

The timid snake upon its hearth's cool sand
Sleeps undisturbed; the squirrel haunts its roof;
    And in the clapboard sides
Of closets, dim with many a spider woof,
Like the uncertain tapping of a hand,
    The beetle-borer hides.

Above its lintel, under mossy eaves,
The mud-wasps build their cells; and in the floor
    Of its neglected porch
The black bees nest. Through each deserted door,
Vague as a phantom's footsteps, steal the leaves,
    And dropped cones of the larch.

But come with me when sunset's magic old
Transforms the ruin of that ancient house;
    When windows, one by one, -
Like age's eyes, that youth's love-dreams arouse, -
Grow lairs of fire; and glad mouths of gold
    Its wide doors, in the sun.

Or let us wait until each rain-stained room
Is carpeted with moonlight, pattened oft
    With the deep boughs o'erhead;
And through the house the wind goes rustling soft,
As might the ghost - a whisper of perfume -
    Of some sweet girl long dead.