Hauntings

In the grey tumult of these after years

Oft silence falls; the incessant wranglers part;

And less-than-echoes of remembered tears

Hush all the loud confusion of the heart;

And a shade, through the toss'd ranks of mirth and crying

Hungers, and pains, and each dull passionate mood, --

Quite lost, and all but all forgot, undying,

Comes back the ecstasy of your quietude.

So a poor ghost, beside his misty streams,

Is haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams,

Hints of a pre-Lethean life, of men,

Stars, rocks, and flesh, things unintelligible,

And light on waving grass, he knows not when,

And feet that ran, but where, he cannot tell.