This page has been validated.
UNBIDDEN
········
Heard you a knocking then, my lords?
No?—and the wind, you think, sounds so?
To me 't was as a stroke of doom,
Reverberate from some long ago.
Well, since 't was nothing, speed the cheer!
Nor sit like phantoms dull and mute,
For something which ye did not hear.
Ye thought me weary? So: and then?
Am I not mortal like the rest?
May I not falter in my mirth,
Nor palsy every guest? . . .
That knocking!—Ah! you note it now.
It vexed me men should disallow
104
