Page:Poems Craik.djvu/208

The very flicker of the fire
 Upon the patterned ground:
O that I were the shepherd-dog
 That guards their happy door!
Or even the silly household eat
 That basks upon the floor!

O that I sat one minute's space
 Where I have sat so long!
O that I heard one little word
 Sweeter than angel's song!
A pause—and then the table fills,
 The harmless mirth brims o'er;
While I—O can it be God's will?—
 I die, outside the door.

My body fails—my desperate soul
 Struggles before it go:
The bleak air 's full of voices wild,
 But not the voice I know;
Dim shapes come wandering through the dark:
 With mocking, curious stares,
Faces long strange peer glimmering by—
 But not one face of theirs.

Lost, lost, and such a little way
 From that dear sheltering door!
Lost, lost, out of the loving arms
 Left empty evermore!