5. The flower grew wild and rankly as the weed,

Roses with thistles struggled for espial,

And vagrant plants of parasitic breed
Had overgrown the dial.

But gay or gloomy, steadfast or infirm,

No heart was there to heed the hour's duration;
All times and tides were lost in one long term
Of stagnant desolation.

6. The wren had built within the porch, she found
Its quiet loneliness so sure and thorough;
And on the lawn-within its turfy mound-
The rabbit made his bŭrrow.

The rabbit wild and gray, that flitted through

The shrubby clumps, and frisked, and sat, and vanished, But leisurely and bold, as if he knew

His enemy was banished.

7. The wary crow-the pheasant from the woods-
Lulled by the still and everlasting sameness,
Close to the mansion, like domestic broods,
Fed with a "shocking tamenèss.”

The coot was swimming in the reedy pond
Beside the water-hen, so soon affrighted;
And in the weedy moat the heron, fond
Of solitude, alighted.

8. The moping heron, motionlèss and stiff,
That on a stone, as silently and stilly,
Stood, an apparent sentinel, as if

To guard the water-lily.

No sound was heard, except, from far away,

The ringing of the whitwall's shrilly laughter,

Or, now and then, the chatter of the jay,
That Echo murmured after.

9. But Echo never mocked the human tongue;

Some weighty crime, that Heaven could not pardon,

A secret curse on that old building hung,

And its deserted garden.

The beds were all untouched by hand or tool;

No footstep marked the damp and mossy gravel, Each walk as green as is the mantled pool,

For want of human travel.

The vine unpruned, and the neglected peach,

Drooped from the wall with which they used to grapple; And on the cankered tree, in easy reach,

Rotted the golden apple.

10. But awfully the truant shunned the ground
The vagrant kept aloof, and daring poacher;
In spite of gaps that through the fences round
Invited the encroacher.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,

A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!

11. The pear and quince lay squandered on the grass;
The mold was purple with unheeded showers
Of bloomy plums-a wilderness it was

Of fruits, and weeds, and flowers!

The mărigōld amidst the nettles blew,

The gourd embraced the rose-bush in its ramble, The thistle and the stock together grew,

The hollyhock and bramble.

12. The bear-bine with the lilac interlaced,

The sturdy burdock choked its slender neighbor, The spicy pink. All tokens were effaced

Of human care and labor.

The very yew Formality had trained

To such a rigid pyramidal stature,

For want of trimming had almost regained
The raggedness of nature.

13. The Fountain was a-dry-neglect and time
Had marred the work of artisan and mason,
And efts and croaking frogs, begot of slime,
Sprawled in the ruined basin.

The statue, fallen from its marble base,
Amidst the refuse leaves, and herbage rotten,
Lay like the idol of some bygone race,

Its name and rites forgotten.

14. On every side the aspect was the same,
All ruined, desolate, forlorn and savage:
No hand or foot within the precinct came
To rectify or ravage.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!

III.

83. THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

PART SECOND.

H, very gloomy is the House of Woe,

Where tears are falling while the bell is knelling, With all the dark solemnities which show

Oh

That Death is in the dwelling!

very, very dreary is the room

Where Love, domestic Love, no longer nestles,
But smitten by the common stroke of doom,
The corpse lies on the trestles!

2. But house of woe, and hearse, and sable pall,
The narrow home of the departed mortal,
Ne'er looked so gloomy as that ghostly hall,
With its deserted pōrtal!

The centiped ǎlong the threshold crept,
The cobweb hung ǎcross in mazy tangle,
And in its winding-sheet the maggot slept,
At every nook and angle.

3. The keyhole lodged the earwig and her brood,
The emmets of the steps had old possession,
And marched in search of their diurnal food

In undisturbed procession.

As undisturbed as the prehensile cell