The Haunted House

GHOSTS everywhere!
At the entrance-door greeting,
In the passageway meeting,
Not with the joyous welcome once heard,
But silently, stealthily —
Without a word,
Although the glad looks are the same,
And lovely child-lips form my name.
‘ Mother-dear,' they seem to say
In the old familiar way;
‘ Mother-dear! Mother-dear!'
But never a sound I hear.

From upper regions where he used to play
On rainy afternoons, and have me stay
To help the game, down to the sunny street
Where he came in and out with eager feet,
The empty house echoes and throbs
With bygone boyish laughter turned to sobs.

Everywhere ghosts!
A call comes to me though I know not where
Or whence — ‘Mother! Mother!' —
Meant just for me and no other.
I hasten and upon the stair
Meet my own little lad, with tender eyes
And smiling mouth, who turns and flies
As I draw near.

I cry to him in anguish — ‘Wait
For me, O little son ! ’
It is too late:
The vision vanishes:
The child is gone.
And yet — that was his merry whistle heard
Just now, like bird-note from an unseen bird,
Above, below, coaxing, — drawing me on, —
Always escaping; for the child is gone.

Everywhere ghosts!
Through the dim silence of the rooms, waylaid
By an elusive presence that withdraws
At my approach and leaves me half afraid,
And most bereft, I pause
To watch a quiet girl who seems
Absorbed in her own pensive thoughts,
And uncommunicated dreams.

I hear faint music. A piano softly played
Draws me anon; and there I see her sitting,
Her figure by the sunny window framed
In that remembered poise as of one flitting;
The sensitive proud face half turned away;
Her hands on keyboard lingering,
Musing over the fingering,
As though she listened for some hour of fate
To strike, and set her spirit on the wing.

Rapt, I stand in the door and wait.
But from the mute piano comes no sound,
While all the house with silence aches
And every quivering memory wakes.
Slowly she turns around,

Looking at me as though she saw me not:
Then — then — I know I am forgot.
She is not there, nor anywhere
In the warm circle my two arms can span,
But gone upon some quest that others share;
And left to me who wait only long days
Of memories that drag like years,
And lonesome nights of futile tears,
A prey to sorrow and her kin despair.
Ghosts everywhere!
Beleaguered in attic, in parlor, in hall!
Ghosts — ghosts!
And I — haunted — am mother of them all.