Ghosts

LOW, weed-climbed cliffs, o'er which at noon The sea-mists swoon: Wind-twisted pines, through which the crow Goes winging slow: Dim fields, the sower never sows, Or reaps or mows: And near the sea a ghostly house of stone Where all is old and lone. A garden, falling in decay, Where statues gray Peer, broken, out of tangled weed And thorny seed: Satyr and Nymph, that once made love By walk and grove: And, near a fountain, shattered, green with mold, A sundial, lichen-old. Like some sad life bereft, To musing left, The house stands: love and youth Both gone, in sooth: But still it sits and dreams: And round it seems Some memory of the past, still young and fair, Haunting each crumbling stair. And suddenly one dimly sees, Come through the trees, A woman, like a wild moss-rose: A man, who goes Softly: and by the dial They kiss a while: Then drowsily the mists blow round them, wan, And they, like ghosts, are gone.