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| THE WANING moon looks upward, this grey night | |
| Sheers round the heavens in one smooth curve | |
| Of easy sailing. Odd red wicks serve | |
| To show where the ships at sea move out of sight. | |
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| This place is palpable me, for here I was born | 5 |
| Of this self-same darkness. Yet the shadowy house below | |
| Is out of bounds, and only the old ghosts know | |
| I have come—they whimper about me, welcome and mourn. | |
| |
| My father suddenly died in the harvesting corn, | |
| And the place is no longer ours. Watching, I hear | 10 |
| No sound from the strangers; the place is dark, and fear | |
| Opens my eyes till the roots of my vision seem torn. | |
| |
| Can I go nearer, never towards the door? | |
| The ghosts and I, we mourn together, and shrink | |
| In the shadow of the cart-shed—hovering on the brink | 15 |
| For ever, to enter the homestead no more. | |
| |
| Is it irrevocable? Can I really not go | |
| Through the open yard-way? Can I not pass the sheds | |
| And through to the mowie? Only the dead in their beds | |
| Can know the fearful anguish that this is so. | 20 |
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| I kiss the stones. I kiss the moss on the wall, | |
| And wish I could pass impregnate into the place. | |
| I wish I could take it all in a last embrace. | |
| I wish with my breast I could crush it, perish it all. | |
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