Saturday, October 09, 2010

THE GHOST HOUSE
I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago
And left no trace but the cellar walls
and a cellar in which the daylight falls
and the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.
*
O'ver ruined fences the grape-vines shield
the woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.
*
I dwell with a strangely aching heart
in that vanished abode there far apart
on that disused and forgotten road
that has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;
*
The whipporwill is coming to shout
and hush and cluck and flutter about:
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out.
*
It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
who share the unlit place with me --
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.
*
They are tireless folk, but slow and sad,
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad --
With none among them that ever sings,
And yet, in view of how many things,
as sweet companions as might be had.
*
-- Robert Frost

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