Haunted

A noisome mildewed vine
Crawls to the rotting eaves;
The gate has dropped from the rusty hinge,
And the walks are stamped with leaves.

Close by the shattered fence
The red-clay road runs by
To a haunted wood, where the hemlocks groan
And the willows sob and sigh.

Among the dank lush flowers
The spiteful fire-fly glows,
And a woman steals by the stagnant pond
Wrapt in her burial clothes.

There's a dark blue scar on her throat,
And ever she makes a moan,
And the humid lizards gleam in the grass,
And the lichens weep on the stone;

And the Moon shrinks in a cloud,
And the traveller shakes with fear,
And an Owl on the skirts of the wood
Hoots, and says, Do you hear?

Go not there at night,
For a spell hangs over all—
The palsied elms, and the dismal road,
And the broken garden-wall.

O, go not there at night,
For a curse is on the place;
Go not there, for fear you meet
The Murdered face to face!