&nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp In the heart of night,
       &nbsp       &nbsp When farers were not near,
       &nbsp The left house said to the house on the right,
“I have marked your rise, O smart newcomer here.”

       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp Said the right, cold-eyed:
       &nbsp       &nbsp “Newcomer here I am,
       &nbsp Hence haler than you with your cracked old hide,
Loose casements, wormy beams, and doors that jam.

       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp “Modern my wood,
       &nbsp       &nbsp My hangings fair of hue;
       &nbsp While my windows open as they should,
And water-pipes thread all my chambers through.

       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp “Your gear is gray,
       &nbsp       &nbsp Your face wears furrows untold.”
       &nbsp “ - Yours might,” mourned the other, “if you held, brother,
The Presences from aforetime that I hold.

       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp “You have not known
       &nbsp       &nbsp Men’s lives, deaths, toils, and teens;
       &nbsp You are but a heap of stick and stone:
A new house has no sense of the have-beens.

       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp “Void as a drum
       &nbsp       &nbsp You stand: I am packed with these,
       &nbsp Though, strangely, living dwellers who come
See not the phantoms all my substance sees!
       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp “Visible in the morning
       &nbsp       &nbsp Stand they, when dawn drags in;
       &nbsp Visible at night; yet hint or warning
Of these thin elbowers few of the inmates win.

       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp “Babes new-brought-forth
       &nbsp       &nbsp Obsess my rooms; straight-stretched
       &nbsp Lank corpses, ere outborne to earth;
Yea, throng they as when first from the ‘Byss upfetched.

       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp “Dancers and singers
       &nbsp       &nbsp Throb in me now as once;
       &nbsp Rich-noted throats and gossamered fingers
Of heels; the learned in love-lore and the dunce.

       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp “Note here within
       &nbsp       &nbsp The bridegroom and the bride,
       &nbsp Who smile and greet their friends and kin,
And down my stairs depart for tracks untried.

       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp “Where such inbe,
       &nbsp       &nbsp A dwelling’s character
       &nbsp Takes theirs, and a vague semblancy
To them in all its limbs, and light, and atmosphere.

       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp “Yet the blind folk
       &nbsp       &nbsp My tenants, who come and go
       &nbsp In the flesh mid these, with souls unwoke,
Of such sylph-like surrounders do not know.”
       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp “ - Will the day come,”
       &nbsp       &nbsp Said the new one, awestruck, faint,
       &nbsp “When I shall lodge shades dim and dumb -
And with such spectral guests become acquaint?”

       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp “ - That will it, boy;
       &nbsp       &nbsp Such shades will people thee,
       &nbsp Each in his misery, irk, or joy,
And print on thee their presences as on me.”