I was sitting,

      She was knitting,

And the portraits of our fore-folk hung around;

   When there struck on us a sigh;

   “Ah—what is that?” said I:

“Was it not you?” said she.  “A sigh did sound.”

      I had not breathed it,

      Nor the night-wind heaved it,

And how it came to us we could not guess;

   And we looked up at each face

   Framed and glazed there in its place,

Still hearkening; but thenceforth was silentness.

      Half in dreaming,

      “Then its meaning,”

Said we, “must be surely this; that they repine

   That we should be the last

   Of stocks once unsurpassed,

And unable to keep up their sturdy line.”

1916.