death!

If I call, no one will answer;
If I knock, no one will come;--
The feet are at rest forever,
And the lips are cold and dumb.

The summer moon is shining
So wan and large and still,
And the weary dead are sleeping
In the graveyard under the hill.

II.

We looked at the wide, white circle
Around the autumn moon,
And talked of the change of weather,--
It would rain, to-morrow, or soon.

And the rain came on the morrow,
And beat the dying leaves
From the shuddering boughs of the maples
Into the flooded eaves.

The clouds wept out their sorrow;
But in my heart the tears
Are bitter for want of weeping,
In all these autumn years.

III.

It is sweet to lie awake musing
On all she has said and done,
To dwell on the words she uttered,
To feast on the smiles I won,

To think with what passion at parting
She gave me my kisses again,--
Dear adieux, and tears and caresses,--
Oh, love! was it joy or pain?

To brood, with a foolish rapture,
On the thought that it must be
My darling this moment is waking
With tenderest thoughts of me!

O sleep I are thy dreams any sweeter?
I linger before thy gate:
We must enter at it together,
And my love is loath and late.

IV.

The bobolink sings in the meadow,
The wren in the cherry-tree:
Come hither, thou little maiden,
And sit upon my knee;

And I will tell thee a story
I read in a book of rhyme;--
I will but feign that it happened
To me, one summer-time,

When we walked through the meadow,
And she and I were young;--
The story is old and weary
With being said and sung.

The story is old and weary;--
Ah, child! is it known to thee?
Who was it that last night kissed thee
Under the cherry-tree?

V.

Like a bird of evil presage,
To the lonely house on the shore
Came the wind with a tale of shipwreck,
And shrieked at the bolted door,

And flapped its wings in the gables,
And shouted the well-known names,
And buffeted the windows
Afeard in their shuddering frames.

It was night, and it is daytime,--
The morning sun is bland,
The white-cap waves come rocking, rocking,
In to the smiling land.

The white-cap waves come rocking, rocking,
In the sun so soft and bright,
And toss and play with the dead man
Drowned in the storm last night.

VI.

I remember the burning brushwood,