The Old House

Quaint and forgotten, by an unused road,
An old house stands: around its doors the dense
Rank ironweeds grow high;
The chipmunks make a highway of its fence;
And on its sunken flagstones newt and toad
As still as lichens lie.

The timid snake upon its hearth's cool sand
Sleeps undisturbed; the squirrel haunts its roof;
And in the clapboard sides
Of closets,--dim with many a spider woof,--
Like the uncertain tapping of a hand,
The beetle-borer hides.

Above its lintel, under mossy eaves,
The mud-wasps build their cells; and in the floor
Of its neglected porch
The black bees nest: through each deserted door,
Vague as faint, phantom footsteps, steal the leaves
And dropped cones of the larch.

But come with me when sunset's magic old
Transforms this ruin--yea! transmutes this house:
When windows, one by one,--
Like Age's eyes, that Youth's love-dreams arouse,--
Grow lairs of fire; and a mouth of gold
Its wide door towards the sun.

Or let us wait until each rain-stained room
Is carpeted with moonlight, patterned oft
With shadow'd boughs o'erhead;
And through the house the wind goes rustling soft,
As might the ghost--a whisper of perfume--
Of some sweet girl long dead.