Low Barometer

The south-wind strengthens to a gale, Across the moon the clouds fly fast, The house is smitten as with a flail, The chimney shudders to the blast. On such a night, when Air has loosed Its guardian grasp on blood and brain, Old terrors then of god or ghost Creep from their caves to life again; And Reason kens he herits in A haunted house. Tenants unknown Assert their squalid lease of sin With earlier title than his own. Unbodied presences, the packed Pollution and remorse of Time, Slipped from oblivion re-enact The horrors of unhousehold crime. Some men would quell the thing with prayer Whose sightless footsteps pad the floor, Whose fearful trespass mounts the stair Or burst the locked forbidden door. Some have seen corpses long interred Escape from hallowing control, Pale charnel forms - nay even have heard The shrilling of a troubled soul, That wanders till the dawn has crossed The dolorous dark, or Earth has wound Closer her storm-spread cloak, and thrust The baleful phantoms underground.