University of Virginia Library


132

FATED!

Stand, fated house, forevermore, alone!
Stand, 'mid thy barren gardens, wild, and swept
By winds that wailing through thy trees have kept
The tune of grief. Be thou of joy unknown:
For in thy walls, now dank with oozing stone,
My lady turned her face from me and wept,
And gave me her last parting kiss, and slept
The sleep from which none wake to laugh or moan.
The summer misbecomes thee, O dread house!
Glad songs of birds sound alien in thy boughs!
Death keeps thy doors, thy passages are full
Of ghosts that sorrow makes not beautiful.
Forlorn, barred, silent—keep thy secret well,
That none who pass may guess what thou could'st tell.