The timid snake upon its hearth's cool sand Sleeps undisturbed; the squirrel haunts its roof; And in the clapboard sides Of closets, dim with many a spider woof, Like the uncertain 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.
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 Faëry Inquisition, That roots out Elf-land heresy,-- Deep in the rock, with mystery Cowled for his grave commission, The Owl sits magisterially.
Around, the stillness deepened; then the grain Went wild with wind; and every briery lane Was swept with dust; and then, tempestuous black, Hillward the tempest heaved a monster back, That on the thunder leaned as on a cane; And on huge shoulders bore a cloudy pack, That gullied gold from many a lightning-crack: One great drop splashed and wrinkled down the pane, And then field, hill, and wood were lost in rain.