Page:Poems Piatt.djvu/144

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130
MY GHOST.
By a still, red house, where the dark and rain
Go in when they will at the open doors;
And the moon, that had just waked.up, looked through
The broken old windows and seemed afraid,
And the wild bats flew and the thistles grew
Where once in the roses the children played.

Just across the road by the cherry-trees
Some fallen white stones had been lying so long,
Half hid in the grass, and under these
There were people dead. I could hear the song
Of a very sleepy dove, as I passed
The graveyard near, and the cricket that cried;
And I looked (ah! the Ghost is coming at last!)
And something was walking at my side.

It seemed to be wrapped in a great dark shawl,
(For the night was a little cold, you know).
It would not speak. It was black and tall;
And it walked so proudly and very slow.
Then it mocked me—everything I could do:
Now it caught at the lightning-flies like me;
Now it stopped where the elder-blossoms grew;
Now it tore the thorns from a grey bent tree.