And doors creak to and fro,
And silent grows the laughter.


THE WHITE MOTH: SIR ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH

If a leaf rustled she would start:
And yet she died, a year ago.
How had so frail a thing the heart
To journey where she trembled so?
And do they turn and turn in fright,
Those little feet, in so much night?

The light above the poet's head
Streamed on the page and on the cloth,
And twice and thrice there buffeted
On the black pane a white-winged moth:
'Twas Annie's soul that beat outside,
And, "Open, open, open!" cried.

"I could not find the way to God;
There were too many flaming suns
For signposts, and the fearful road
Led over wastes where millions
Of flaming comets hissed and burned--
I was bewildered and I turned.

"O, it was easy then! I knew
Your window, and no star beside.
Look up and take me back to you!"