My heart a haunted manor is, where Time
Has tumbled noiselessly with mouldering hands:
At sunset ghosts troop out in sudden bands,
At noon 'tis vacant as a house of crime:

But when, unseen as sound, the night-winds climb
The higher keys with their unstilled demands,
It wakes to memories of other lands,
And thrills with echoes of enchanted rhyme.

Then, through the dreams and hopes of earlier years,
A fall of phantom footsteps on the stair
Approaches near, and ever nearer yet.
A voice rings through my life's deserted ways:
I turn to greet thee, Love. The empty air
Holds but the spectre of my own regret.