Nostalgia

The waning moon looks upward; this grey night     Slopes round the heavens in one smooth curve     Of easy sailing; odd red wicks serve     To show where the ships at sea move out of sight.     The place is palpable me, for here I was born     Of this self-same darkness. Yet the shadowy house below     Is out of bounds, and only the old ghosts know     I have come, I feel them whimper in welcome, and mourn.     My father suddenly died in the harvesting corn     And the place is no longer ours. Watching, I hear     No sound from the strangers, the place is dark, and fear     Opens my eyes till the roots of my vision seems torn.     Can I go no nearer, never towards the door?     The ghosts and I we mourn together, and shrink     In the shadow of the cart-shed. Must we hover on the brink     Forever, and never enter the homestead any more?     Is it irrevocable? Can I really not go     Through the open yard-way? Can I not go past the sheds     And through to the mowie? - Only the dead in their beds     Can know the fearful anguish that this is so.     I kiss the stones, I kiss the moss on the wall,     And wish I could pass impregnate into the place.     I wish I could take it all in a last embrace.     I wish with my breast I here could annihilate it all.