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- Haunted Houses
- By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- All houses wherein men have lived and died
- Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
- The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
- With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
- We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
- Along the passages they come and go,
- Impalpable impressions on the air,
- A sense of something moving to and fro.
- There are more guests at table than the hosts
- Invited; the illuminated hall
- Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
- As silent as the pictures on the wall.
- The stranger at my fireside cannot see
- The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
- He but perceives what is; while unto me
- All that has been is visible and clear.
- We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
- Owners and occupants of earlier dates
- From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
- And hold in mortmain still their old estates.
- The spirit-world around this world of sense
- Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
- Wafts through these earthly mists and vapoursdense
- A vital breath of more ethereal air.
- Our little lives are kept in equipoise
- By opposite attractions and desires;
- The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
- And the more noble instinct that aspires.
- These perturbations, this perpetual jar
- Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
- Come from the influence of an unseen star
- An undiscovered planet in our sky.
- And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
- Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light,
- Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
- Into the realm of mystery and night,—
- So from the world of spirits there descends
- A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
- O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
- Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.
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