Folk had sought their beds, But I hailed: to view me Under the moon, out to me Several pushed their heads, And to each I told my name, Plans, and that therefrom I came. “Did you? . . . Ah, ’tis true I once heard, back a long time, Here had spent his young time, Some such man as you . . . Good-night.” The casement closed again, And I was left in the frosty lane. GOING AND STAYING I THE moving sun-shapes on the spray, The sparkles where the brook was flowing, Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May, These were the things we wished would stay; But they were going. II Seasons of blankness as of snow, The silent bleed of a world decaying, The moan of multitudes in woe, These were the things we wished would go; But they were staying. III Then we looked closelier at Time, And saw his ghostly arms revolving To sweep off woeful things with prime, Things sinister with things sublime Alike dissolving. READ BY MOONLIGHT I PAUSED to read a letter of hers By the moon’s cold shine, Eyeing it in the tenderest way, And edging it up to catch each ray Upon her light-penned line. I did not know what years would flow Of her life’s span and mine Ere I read another letter of hers By the moon’s cold shine! I chance now on the last of hers, By the moon’s cold shine; It is the one remaining page Out of the many shallow and sage Whereto she set her sign. Who could foresee there were to be Such letters of pain and pine Ere I should read this last of hers By the moon’s cold shine! AT A HOUSE IN HAMPSTEAD SOMETIME THE DWELLING OF JOHN KEATS O POET, come you haunting here Where streets have stolen up all around, And never a nightingale pours one Full-throated sound? Drawn from your drowse by the Seven famed Hills, Thought you to find all just the same Here shining, as in hours of old, If you but came? What will you do in your surprise At seeing that changes wrought in Rome Are wrought yet more on the misty slope One time your home? Will you wake wind-wafts on these stairs? Swing the doors open noisily? Show as an umbraged ghost beside Your ancient tree? Or will you, softening, the while You further and yet further look, Learn that a laggard few would fain Preserve your nook? . . . —Where the Piazza steps incline, And catch late light at eventide, I once stood, in that Rome, and thought, “’Twas here he died.” I drew to a violet-sprinkled spot, Where day and night a pyramid keeps Uplifted its white hand, and said, “’Tis there he sleeps.”