Part 5 — THE OLD INN.

Red-winding from the sleepy town, One takes the lone, forgotten lane Straight through the hills. A brush-bird brown Bubbles in thorn-flowers sweet with rain; Light shivers sink the gleaming grain; The cautious drip of higher leaves The lower dips that drip again.— Above the tangled tops it heaves Its gables and its haunted eaves. 2. One creeper, gnarled to bloomlessness, O'er-forests all its eastern wall; The sighing cedars rake and press Dark boughs along the panes they sprawl; While, where the sun beats, breaks a drawl Of hiving wasps; one bushy bee, Gold-dusty, hurls along the hall To hum into a crack.—To me The shadows seem too scared to flee. 3. Of ragged chimneys martins make Huge pipes of music; twittering here Build, breed, and roost.—My footfalls wake Strange stealing echoes, till I fear I'll meet my pale self coming near; My phantom face as in a glass; Or one men murdered, buried—where? Dim in gray, stealthy glimmer, pass With lips that seem to moan "Alas."