;
I went to the window to see the sight;
All the dead that ever I knew
Going one by one and two by two.

On they pass'd and on they pass'd;
Townsfellows all, from first to last;
Born in the moonlight of the lane,
Quench'd in the heavy shadow again.

Schoolmates, marching as when they play'd
At soldiers once--but now more staid;
Those were the strangest sight to me
Who were drown'd, I knew, in the open sea.

Straight and handsome folk, bent and weak, too;
Some that I loved, and gasp'd to speak to;
Some but a day in their churchyard bed;
Some that I had not known were dead.

A long long crowd--where each seem'd lonely,
Yet of them all there was one, one only,
Raised a head or looked my way;
She linger'd a moment--she might not stay.

How long since I saw that fair pale face!
Ah! Mother dear! might I only place
My head on thy breast, a moment to rest,
While thy hand on my tearful cheek were press'd!

On, on, a moving bridge they made
Across the moon-stream, from shade to shade,
Young and old, women and men;
Many long-forgot, but remember'd then,

And first there came a bitter laughter;
A sound of tears a moment after,
And then a music so lofty and gay,
That every morning, day by day,
I strive to recall it if I may.

THE NEIGHBORS: THEODOSIA GARRISON

_At first cock-crow_
_The ghosts must go_
_Back to their quiet graves below._

Against the distant striking of the clock
I heard the crowing cock,
And I arose and threw the window wide;
Long, long before the setting of the moon,
And yet I knew they must be passing soon--
My neighbors who had died--
Back to their narrow green-roofed homes that wait
Beyond the churchyard gate.

I leaned far out and waited--all the world
Was like a thing impearled,
Mysterious and beautiful and still:
The crooked road seemed one the moon might lay,
Our little village slept in Quaker gray,
And gray and tall the poplars on the hill;
And then far off I heard the cock--and then
My neighbors passed again.

At first it seemed a white cloud, nothing more,
Slow drifting by my door,
Or gardened lilies swaying in the wind;
Then suddenly each separate face I knew,
The tender lovers drifting two and two,
Old, peaceful folk long since passed out of mind,
And little children--one whose hand held still
An earth-grown daffodil.

And here I saw one pausing for a space
To lift a wistful face
Up to a certain window where there