Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/30
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
MY GHOSTS
My house is filled with ghosts—
Ghosts of all sorts that sing and dance,
And fill the halls with laughter gay,
And other ghosts that are content
To be philosophers,
And point the way to peace and happiness.
Grim ghosts are there,
Wan specters they of tragedy,
Despairing in their mien,
Compellers all of gloom,
Who fill me full of horror as they pass,
The which, when grown too tense
With contemplation of their evil ways,
I turn away from, summoning
Some ghosts of lyric song to ease the strain,
And find serenity
The while he, smiling, sings to me.
The ghosts of all the famous folk of history
Are there:
Wise Solomon and Charlemagne
And Pericles and Plato; Socrates,
And all the singers of the glory that was Greece
And Rome;
Columbus, Cabot, and their crews,
And Raleigh, brave pathfinders to our newer world;
Sad Louis, and Robespierre of greenish eyes,
The pallid Nemesis of kings;
And he who lost at Waterloo
Comes now and then, and back to glory stalks,
Rehearsing for my thrill the deeds of Lodi's bridge
And Austerlitz;
While Washington's own self strides nobler by,
Crowned with the greener bays
Of his unselfishness;
And Lincoln, heart of godlike mold,
Comes hauntingly to stir
My soul alternately to laughter and to tears.
Ghosts of all sorts that sing and dance,
And fill the halls with laughter gay,
And other ghosts that are content
To be philosophers,
And point the way to peace and happiness.
Grim ghosts are there,
Wan specters they of tragedy,
Despairing in their mien,
Compellers all of gloom,
Who fill me full of horror as they pass,
The which, when grown too tense
With contemplation of their evil ways,
I turn away from, summoning
Some ghosts of lyric song to ease the strain,
And find serenity
The while he, smiling, sings to me.
The ghosts of all the famous folk of history
Are there:
Wise Solomon and Charlemagne
And Pericles and Plato; Socrates,
And all the singers of the glory that was Greece
And Rome;
Columbus, Cabot, and their crews,
And Raleigh, brave pathfinders to our newer world;
Sad Louis, and Robespierre of greenish eyes,
The pallid Nemesis of kings;
And he who lost at Waterloo
Comes now and then, and back to glory stalks,
Rehearsing for my thrill the deeds of Lodi's bridge
And Austerlitz;
While Washington's own self strides nobler by,
Crowned with the greener bays
Of his unselfishness;
And Lincoln, heart of godlike mold,
Comes hauntingly to stir
My soul alternately to laughter and to tears.
15