The key will stammer, and the door reply, The hall wake, yawn, and smile; the torpid stair Will grumble at our feet, the table cry: 'Fetch my belongings for me; I am bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled. The loitering shadows move along the walls; Then silence very slowly lifts his head. The starling with impatient screech has flown The chimney, and is watching from the tree. They thought us gone for ever: mouse alone Stops in the middle of the floor to see. Now all you idle things, resume your toil. Hearth, put your flames on. Sulky kettle, boil. III Contented evening; comfortable joys; The snoozing fire, and all the fields are still: Tranquil delight, no purpose, and no noise-- Unless the slow wind flowing round the hill. 'Murry' (the kettle) dozes; little mouse Is rambling prudently about the floor. There's lovely conversation in this house: Words become princes that were slaves before. What a sweet atmosphere for you and me The people that have been here left behind.... Oh, but I fear it may turn out to be Built of a dream, erected in the mind: So if we speak too loud, we may awaken To find it vanished, and ourselves mistaken. IV Lift up the curtain carefully. All the trees Stand in the dark like drowsy sentinels. The oak is talkative to-night; he tells The little bushes crowding at his knees That formidable, hard, voluminous History of growth from acorn into age. They titter like school-children; they arouse Their comrades, who exclaim: 'He is very sage.' Look how the moon is staring through that cloud, Laying and lifting idle streaks of light. O hark! was that the monstrous wind, so loud And sudden, prowling always through the night? Let down the shaking curtain. They are queer, Those foreigners. They and we live so near. V Come, come to bed. The shadows move about, And some one seems to overhear our talk. The fire is low; the candles flicker out; The ghosts of former tenants want to walk. Already they are shuffling through the gloom. I felt an old man touch my shoulder-blade; Once he was married here; they love this room, He and his woman and the child they made. Dead, dead, they are, yet some familiar sound, Creeping along the brink of happy life, Revives their memory from under ground-- The farmer and his troublesome old wife. Let us be going: as we climb the stairs, They'll sit down in our warm half-empty chairs. VI