6.

The night is shrewd with storm and sleet; Each loose-warped casement raps or groans; I hear the wailing woodland beat The tempest with long blatant moans,

Like one who fears defeat. And sitting here beyond the storm, Alone within the lonely house, It seems of Sleep the Fairy charm

Weaves incantations; even the mouse That scratched has come to harm. And in this grave light, stolen o'er Familiar objects, grown severe,

I‘ m strange — as, opening a door, One finds one's dead self standing near, One knew not dead before. The old stair rings with growling gusts;

Each hearth's flue gasps a gorgon throat That snores and sleeps; the spectral dusts, Which yonder Shawnee war-gear coat, Whose quiver hangs and rusts,

Are shaken; till I feel that he, Who wore it in the wild war-dance, And died in it, fills shadowy Its wampumed skins; its plume, perchance,

Shakes, scowling eyes at me. And so the Swedenborge I toss Aside, contented with the dark That takes me. O'er the fire-light cross;

Pass where the andirons spit and spark, And ponder o'er her loss. Or from the flaw-splashed window yearn Out toward the waste, where sway and dip

Dank, dark December boughs, where burn Some late last leaves, that icy drip No matter where you turn. Where sodden soil, you scarce have trod,

Fills oozy footprints; and the night So ugly that it mocks at God, Creating monsters which the sight Fancies, unseen, abroad.

The months I count: how long it seems Since that bland summer when with her, There on her porch, in rainy gleams We watched the mellow lightning stir

In rain-clouds gray as dreams! When all the west a torn gold sheet — Swift openings of some Titan's forge — Laid bald with storm; in quivering heat

Pitched precipice and nightmare gorge, Where thunder torrents beat. And strong the wind was as again Storm lit the instant earth; and how

The wood sprang out one virent stain; We read no more — lost is it now!— In Romance of a Reign; A tale of nowhere; then that we

Were reading till we heard the plunge Of distant thunder sullenly, And left to mark long lightnings lunge Convulsions fiery.

What worlds love wrought us, dreaming there, Of sorcery and necromance! With spirits lustrous of the air, A land like one great pearl, a trance

Of floods and forests fair. Where white-faced flowers sang and thought; Where fragrant birds flew, brilliant-blown, In winging odors; feather-fraught

With light, where breathing colors shone, On throbbing music brought. Or built us some snug country home Among the hills; with terraces

Vine-hung and orchared o'er the foam Of the Ohio, far one sees Wind crimson in the gloam. And this! and this!— alone! alone!

To hear the sweep of winter rain, The missiled sleet's sharp arrows blown; Dark shadow on the freezing pane, And on my heart a moan!