The Haunted Mansion
By Marietta Hawley
It stands alone on a haunted shore,
With curious words of a deathless lore
On its massive gate empearled;
And its carefully-guarded, mystic key
Hideth its solemn mystery
From the seeking eyes of the world.
And pictures out of each haunted room
Up through the ghostly shadows loom
And gleam with a spectral light;
Pictures lit with a radiant glow,
And some that image such desolate wo
That weeping you turn from the sight.
And oft do its stately walls repeat
Echoes of music wildly sweet,
Swelling to gladness high;
With mournful ballads of ancient time,
And funeral hymns—and a nursery rime,
Dying away in a sigh.
And oft in the silence of midnight air
You hear on its stately winding-stair
The echoes of fairy feet;
Gentle footsteps, that lightly fall
Through the enchanted castle-hall
And up in the golden street.
And still in a dark, forsaken tower,
Crowned with a withered cypress-flower,
Is a bowed head turned away;
A face like carvèd marble white,
Sweet eyes drooping away from the light,
Shunning the eye of day.
Mysteries strange its still walls keep;
Strange are the crowds that through it sweep,
Walking by night and day;
But evermore will the castle-hall
Echo their footsteps’ phantom fall,
Till its walls shall crumble away.