Now by the wall of the ancient town I lean Myself, like ancient wall and dust and sky, And the purple dusk, grown old, grown old in heart. Shadows of clouds flow inward from the sea. The mottled fields grow dark. The golden wall Grows gray again, turns stone again, the tower, No longer kindled, darkens against a cloud. Old is the world, old as the world am I; The cries of sheep rise upward from the fields, Forlorn and strange; and wake an ancient echo In fields my heart has known, but has not seen. "These fields"--an unknown voice beyond the wall Murmurs--"were once the province of the sea. Where now the sheep graze, mermaids were at play, Sea-horses galloped, and the great jeweled tortoise Walked slowly, looking upward at the waves, Bearing upon his back a thousand barnacles, A white acropolis ..." The ancient tower Sends out, above the houses and the trees, And the wide fields below the ancient walls, A measured phrase of bells. And in the silence I hear a woman's voice make answer then: "Well, they are green, although no ship can sail them.... Sky-larks rest in the grass, and start up singing Before the girl who stoops to pick sea-poppies. Spiny, the poppies are, and oh how yellow! And the brown clay is runneled by the rain...." A moment since, the sheep that crop the grass Had long blue shadows, and the grass-tips sparkled: Now all grows old.... O voices strangely speaking, Voices of man and woman, voices of bells, Diversely making comment on our time Which flows and bears us with it into dusk, Repeat the things you say! Repeat them slowly Upon this air, make them an incantation For ancient tower, old wall, the purple twilight, This dust, and me. But all I hear is silence, And something that may be leaves or may be sea.
When the tree bares, the music of it changes: Hard and keen is the sound, long and mournful; Pale are the poplar boughs in the evening light Above my house, against a slate-cold cloud. When the house ages and the tenants leave it, Cricket sings in the tall grass by the threshold; Spider, by the cold mantel, hangs his web. Here, in a hundred years from that clear season When first I came here, bearing lights and music, To this old ghostly house my ghost will come,-- Pause in the half-light, turn by the poplar, glide Above tall grasses through the broken door. Who will say that he saw--or the dusk deceived him-- A mist with hands of mist blow down from the tree And open the door and enter and close it after? Who will say that he saw, as midnight struck Its tremulous golden twelve, a light in the window, And first heard music, as of an old piano, Music remote, as if it came from the earth, Far down; and then, in the quiet, eager voices? "... Houses grow old and die, houses have ghosts-- Once in a hundred years we return, old house, And live once more." ... And then the ancient answer, In a voice not human, but more like creak of boards Or rattle of panes in the wind--"Not as the owner, But as a guest you come, to fires not lit By hands of yours.... Through these long-silent chambers Move slowly, turn, return, and bring once more Your lights and music. It will be good to talk."