tapping of a hand,
The beetle-borer hides.

Above its lintel, under mossy eaves,
The mud-wasps build their cells; and in the floor
Of its neglected porch
The black bees nest. Through each deserted door,
Vague as a phantom's footsteps, steal the leaves,
And dropped cones of the larch.

But come with me when sunset's magic old
Transforms the ruin of that ancient house;
When windows, one by one,--
Like age's eyes, that youth's love-dreams arouse,--
Grow lairs of fire; and glad mouths of gold
Its wide doors, in the sun.

Or let us wait until each rain-stained room
Is carpeted with moonlight, pattened oft
With the deep boughs o'erhead;
And through the house the wind goes rustling soft,
As might the ghost--a whisper of perfume--
Of some sweet girl long dead.

THE ROCK.

Here, at its base, in dingled deeps
Of spice-bush, where the ivy creeps,
The cold spring scoops its hollow;
And there three mossy stepping-stones
Make ripple murmurs; undertones
Of foam that blend and follow
With voices of the wood that drones.

The quail pipes here when noons are hot;
And here, in coolness sunlight-shot
Beneath a roof of briers,
The red-fox skulks at close of day;
And here at night, the shadows gray
Stand like FRANCISCAN friars,
With moonbeam beads whereon they pray.

Here yawns the ground-hog's dark-dug hole;
And there the tunnel of the mole
Heaves under weed and flower;
A sandy pit-fall here and there
The ant-lion digs and lies a-lair;
And here, for sun and shower,
The spider weaves a silvery snare.

The poison-oak's rank tendrils twine
The rock's south side; the trumpet-vine,
With crimson bugles sprinkled,
Makes green its eastern side; the west
Is rough with lichens; and, gray-pressed
Into an angle wrinkled,
The hornets hang an oblong nest.

The north is hid from sun and star,
And here,--like an Inquisitor
Of Faery Inquisition,
That roots out Elf-land heresy,--
Deep in the rock, with mystery
Cowled for his grave commission,
The Owl sits magisterially.

RAIN.

Around, the stillness deepened; then the grain
Went wild with wind; and every briery lane
Was swept with dust; and then, tempestuou