Lake Lyrics and Other Poems

by William Wilfred Campbell

 

ALONE

 
Here in the night I sit alone,
    Where far above the aged roof,
Half mossed, and half with vines o’er-grown,
    The starlight weaves a silver woof,
And falls in flakes where all unknown,
5
Out in the night I sit alone.

Here all alone where only comes
    The moon’s white feet before the dawn,
I sit and list the dreary hums
    Of night sounds where all life is gone,
10
While night its lonely cycle sums,
And wait a step that never comes.

’Tis only for a ghost I wait,
    The wraith of something gone before,
Some past, some sweet, long-dreamed-of state,
15
    Whose memory is my only store;
Like Lazarus at the rich man’s gate,
Here ’neath the stars I watch and wait.

I watch and wait, but never comes
    The voice I long had loved to hear,
20
Through weary ours the cricket hums
    Weird music, and the night is drear,
And while its lonely cycle sums,
I wait a step that never comes.