Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich / [by Thomas Bailey Aldrich] [electronic text]

VIII.
GHOSTS.

THOSE forms we fancy shadows, those strange lights That flash on dank morasses, the quick wind That smites us by the roadside—are the Night's Innumerable children. Unconfined By shroud or coffin, disembodied souls, Uneasy spirits, steal into the air From ancient graveyards when the curfew tolls At the day's death. Pestilence and despair Fly with the sightless bats at set of sun; And wheresoever murders have been done, In crowded palaces or lonely woods, Where'er a soul has sold itself and lost Its high inheritance, there, hovering, broods Some sad, invisible, accurséd ghost!