The Creaking Door

Come in, old Ghost of all that used to be!--
You find me old,
And love grown cold,
And fortune fled to younger company:
Departed, as the glory of the day,
With friends!--And you, it seems, have come to stay.--
'T is time to pray.

Come; sit with me, here at Life's creaking door,
All comfortless.--
Think, nay! then, guess,
What was the one thing, eh? that made me poor?--
The love of beauty, that I could not bind?
My dream of truth? or faith in humankind?--
But, never mind!

All are departed now, with love and youth,
Whose stay was brief;
And left but grief
And gray regret--two jades, who tell the truth;--
Whose children--memories of things to be,
And things that failed,--within my heart, ah me!
Cry constantly.

None can turn time back, and no man delay
Death when he knocks,--
What good are clocks,
Or human hearts, to stay for us that day
When at Life's creaking door we see his smile,--
Death's! at the door of this old House of Trial?--
Old Ghost, let's wait awhile.