Ghosts by Ella Wheeler Wilcox — Read

There are ghosts in the room. / As I sit here alone, from the dark corners there / They come out of the gloom, / And they stand at my side and they lean on my chair.

There's the ghost of a Hope / That lighted my days with a fanciful glow. / In her hand is the rope / That strangled her life out. Hope was slain long ago.

But her ghost comes to-night, / With its skeleton face and expressionless eyes, / And it stands in the light, / And mocks me, and jeers me with sobs and with sighs.

There's the ghost of a Joy, / A frail, fragile thing, and I prized it too much, / And the hands that destroy / Clasped it close, and it died at the withering touch.

There's the ghost of a Love, / Born with joy, reared with hope, died in pain and unrest, / But he towers above / All the others-this ghost: yet a ghost at the best.

I am weary, and fain / Would forget all these dead: but the gibbering host / Make my struggle in vain, / In each shadowy corner there lurketh a ghost.