Still with his back to us all the pilot stood, but we heard him Swallowing hard, as he pulled the bell-rope for stopping. Then, turning,-- "This is the place where it happened," brokenly whispered the pilot. "Somehow, I never like to go by here alone in the night-time." Darkly the Mississippi flowed by the town that lay in the starlight, Cheerful with lamps. Below we could hear them reversing the engines, And the great boat glided up to the shore like a giant exhausted. Heavily sighed her pipes. Broad over the swamps to the eastward Shone the full moon, and turned our far-trembling wake into silver. All was serene and calm, but the odorous breath of the willows Smote with a mystical sense of infinite sorrow upon us. FORLORN. I. Red roses, in the slender vases burning, Breathed all upon the air,-- The passion and the tenderness and yearning, The waiting and the doubting and despair. II. Still with the music of her voice was haunted, Through all its charmed rhymes, The open book of such a one as chanted The things he dreamed in old, old summer-times. III. The silvern chords of the piano trembled Still with the music wrung From them; the silence of the room dissembled The closes of the songs that she had sung. IV. The languor of the crimson shawl's abasement,-- Lying without a stir Upon the floor,--the absence at the casement, The solitude and hush were full of her. V. Without, and going from the room, and never Departing, did depart Her steps; and one that came too late forever Felt them go heavy o'er his broken heart. VI. And, sitting in the house's desolation, He could not bear the gloom, The vanishing encounter and evasion Of things that were and were not in the room. VII. Through midnight streets he followed fleeting visions Of faces and of forms; He heard old tendernesses and derisions Amid the sobs and cries of midnight storms. VIII. By midnight lamps, and from the darkness under That lamps made at their feet, He saw sweet eyes peer out in innocent wonder, And sadly follow after him down the street. IX. The noonday crowds their restlessness obtruded Between him and his quest; At unseen corners jostled and eluded, Against his hand her silken robes were pressed. X. Doors closed upon her; out of garret casements He knew she looked at him; In splendid mansions and in squalid basements, Upon the walls he saw her shadow swim. XI. From rapid carriages she gleamed upon him, Whirling away from sight; From all the hopelessness of search she won him Back to the dull and lonesome house at night. XII. Full early into dark the twilights saddened Within its closed doors; The echoes, with the clock's monotony maddened, Leaped loud in welcome from the hollow floors; XIII.