Ada Bartrick Baker (1854– )

WHEN you live alone, how you hear each sound!

Should a mouse but scuttle along the ground

And a loose board creak—There! was it a mouse?

Or a ghost’s step through the house!

Strange! What fancies come in a crowd,

When your fire burns fast and your clock ticks loud.

Outside, there’s a sudden lull in the rain,

And—who tapp’d on the window-pane?

Only a wind-blown jasmine spray.

I saw it was loosen’d yesterday:

But it’s odd, it’s odd how the fancy lingers;

It seemed like a dead man’s fingers!

Dead; yes, dead. Oh! more than a year.

And what should a dead man do down here,

Tapping like that on my window-pane?

The freak of a foolish brain!

But the wind, the wind! Like a soul bereft

Of reason, hopelessly lost and left,

It wails and moans. Ah! Years ago

A voice that I loved moan’d so.

Where was that tragic echo caught?

What ails the night? Or am I distraught?

Should I bear the sight, if I saw appear—

There are steps—hark!—drawing near….

Steps indeed. Ah! but voices too.

Friends of mine—this is good of you!

Quick! Come in from the wind and the rain:

Thank God! I’m alive again.