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Which one is truly the ghost?
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The house is all deserted
In the dim evening gloom,
Only one figure passes
Slowly from room to room;
And pausing at each doorway,
Seems gathering up again
Within her heart the relics
Of bygone joy and pain.
There is an earnest longing
In those who onward gaze,
Looking with weary patience
Towards the coming days.
There is a deeper longing,
More sad, more strong, more keen:
Those know it who look backward
And yearn for what has been.
At every hearth she pauses,
Touches each well-known chair;
Gazes from every window,
Lingers on every stair.
What have those months brought Alice
Now one more year past?
This evening she shall tell us
The third one and the last.
"When I hear (tonight it may be)
Someone pausing at my door,
I shall know the gay, soft accents
Heard and welcomed oft before!
So each day I am more hopeful
He may come before the night;
Every sunset I feel surer
He must come ere morning light."
Days passed. The golden summer
In the sudden heat bore down,
Its blue bright, glowing sweetness
Upon the scorching town.
And sights and sounds of country
Came in the warm, soft tune
Sung by the honeyed breezes
Borne on the wings of June.
One twilight hour but earlier
Than usual, Alice thought,
She knew the fresh sweet fragrance
Of flowers that Phillip brought,
Through opened doors and windows
It stole up through the gloom,
And with appealing sweetness
Drew Alice from her room.
Yes, he was there; and pausing
Just near the opened door,
To check her heart's quick beating,
She heard - and paused still more -
His low voice - Alice answered,
His pleading - Yes, she knew
The tone, the words, the accents,
She once had heard them too!
Then came a plaintive murmur -
"Alice, my dearest love,
My soul passed through the fire,
My dreams will stand above."
The long-lost one, she claims him;
"My Phillip - mine once more!"
And now the gloomy evening
Sees Alice pale and worn,
Leaving the house forever
To wander out forlorn.
Between the Past and Present
On that bleak moment's height,
She stood, as some lost traveller,
By a quick flash of light
Seeing the gulf before him
With dizzy, sick despair,
Reels backward, but to find it,
A deeper chasm there.
The twilight grew still darker,
The fragrant flowers more sweet,
The stars shone out in heaven,
The lamps gleamed down the street;
And hours passed in dreaming
Over her new-found fate,
Ere she could think of wondering
Why Phillip was so late.
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