Explore "The Haunted House" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ I. The shadows sit and stand within its door / Like uninvited guests and poor, / And all the long, hot summer day / A dry green locust whirs its roundelay, / And the shadows halt at the door. / The sheeted iron upon the roof / Stretches its weary hide and cracks; / The spider weaves his windy woof / In dingy closet cracks, / And all a something lacks. / The freckled snake crawls o'er the floor, / Tongues at the shadows in the door, / And where the musty mosses run / Basks in the sun.
/ II. The children of the fathers sleep / Beneath the melancholy pines; / Earth-worms within grim skulls forever creep / And the glow-worm shines; / The orchards in the meadow deep / Lift up their stained, gnarled arms, / Mossed, lichened where limp lizards peep. / No youth swells up to make them leap / And cry against the storms; / No blossom lulls their age asleep, / Each wind brings sad alarms. / Big-bellied apples gold or bell-round pears / No maiden gathers now; / The moistures drip great reeking tears / From each old, crippled bough.