Phantoms

This was her home; one mossy gable thrust     Above the cedars and the locust trees:     This was her home, whose beauty now is dust,     A lonely memory for melodies     The wild birds sing, the wild birds and the bees.     Here every evening is a prayer: no boast     Or ruin of sunset makes the wan world wroth;     Here, through the twilight, like a pale flower's ghost,     A drowsy flutter, flies the tiger-moth;     And dusk spreads darkness like a dewy cloth.     In vagabond velvet, on the placid day,     A stain of crimson, lolls the butterfly;     The south wind sows with ripple and with ray     The pleasant waters; and the gentle sky     Looks on the homestead like a quiet eye.     Their melancholy quaver, lone and low,     When day is done, the gray tree-toads repeat:     The whippoorwills, far in the afterglow,     Complain to silence: and the lightnings beat,     In one still cloud, glimmers of golden heat.     He comes not yet: not till the dusk is dead,     And all the western glow is far withdrawn;     Not till, - a sleepy mouth love's kiss makes red, -     The baby bud opes in a rosy yawn,     Breathing sweet guesses at the dreamed-of dawn.     When in the shadows, like a rain of gold,     The fireflies stream steadily; and bright     Along the moss the glowworm, as of old,     A crawling sparkle - like a crooked light     In smoldering vellum - scrawls a square of night, -     Then will he come; and she will lean to him, -     She, - the sweet phantom, - memory of that place, -     Between the starlight and his eyes; so dim     With suave control and soul-compelling grace,     He cannot help but speak her, face to face.