Classic Poem

The boat put in at dead of night,
And when I reached the house 'twas sleeping dark.
I knew my gentlest tap would be a spark
To set my home alight:
My mother, ever listening in her sleep
For my returning step, would leap
Awake with welcome, and my father's eyes
Would twinkle merrily to greet me,
And my young sister would run down to meet me
With sleepy sweet surprise.

And yet awhile I lingered
Upon the threshold listening
And watched the cold stars glistening,
And seemed to hear the deep
Calm breathing of the house asleep—
In easy sleep so deep I almost feared to break it;
And, even as I fingered
The knocker, loth to wake it,
Like some uncanny inkling
Of news from otherwhere
I felt a cold breath in my hair,
As though, with chin upon my shoulder,
One waited hard upon my heel,
With pricking eyes of steel,
Though well I knew that not a soul was there.

Until at last grown bolder
I knocked, and in a twinkling
The house was all afire
With welcome in the night—
First, in my mother's room a light,
And then her foot upon the stair—
A bolt shot back, a candle's flare,
A happy cry—and to her breast
She hugged her heart's desire,
And hushed her fears to rest.

Then, shivering in the keen night air,
My sleepy sister laughing came
And drew us in, and stirred to flame
The smouldering kitchen-fire and set
The kettle on the kindling red;
And, as I watched the homely blaze
And thought of wandering days
With sharp regret,
I missed my father: then I heard
How he was still abed,
And had been ailing for a day or so,
But now was waking if I'd go …

My foot already on the stair,
In answer to my mother's word
I turned, and saw in dull amaze
Behind her, as she stood all unaware,
An old man sitting in my father's chair …
A strange old man … yet, as I looked at him,
Before my eyes a dim
Remembrance seemed to swim
Of some old man who'd lurked about the boat
While we were still at sea,
And who had crouched beside me at the oar
As we had rowed ashore;
Though at the time I'd taken little note
I felt I'd seen that strange old man before:
But how he'd come to follow me
Unknown …
And to be sitting there …
Then I recalled the cold breath in my hair
When I had stood alone
Before the bolted door.

And now my mother, wondering sore
To see me stare and stare
So strangely at an empty chair,
Turned too and saw the old man there.
And, as she turned, he slowly raised
His drooping head
And looked upon her with her husband's eyes.
She stood a moment dazed
And watched him slowly rise
As though to come to her,
Then with a cry she sped
Upstairs ere I could stir.
Still dazed, I let her go alone:
I heard her footstep overhead:
I heard her drop beside the bed
With low forsaken moan.
Yet I could only stare and stare
Upon my father's empty chair.