Listen . . .
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.
If it
Were lighter touch
Than petal of flower resting
On grass, oh still too heavy it were,
Too heavy!
Just now,
Out of the strange
Still dusk . . . as strange, as still . . .
A white moth flew. Why am I grown
So cold?
Seen on a Night in November
How frail
Above the bulk
Of crashing water hangs,
Autumnal, evanescent, wan,
The moon.
Is it as plainly in our living shown,
By slant and twist, which way the wind hath blown?
More dim than waning moon
Thy face, more faint
Than is the falling wind
Thy voice, yet do
Thine eyes most strangely glow,
Thou ghost . . . thou ghost.
I have minded me
Of the noon-day brightness,
And the crickets’ drowsy
Singing in the sunshine . . .
I have minded me
Of the slim marsh-grasses
That the winds at twilight,
Dying, scarcely ripple . . .
And I cannot sleep.
I have minded me
Of a lily-pond,
Where the waters sway
All the moonlit leaves
And the curled long stems . . .
And I cannot sleep.