“That is a quiet place—

That house in the trees with the shady lawn.”

“—If, child, you knew what there goes on

You would not call it a quiet place.

Why, a phantom abides there, the last of its race,

   And a brain spins there till dawn.”

   “But I see nobody there,—

Nobody moves about the green,

Or wanders the heavy trees between.”

“—Ah, that’s because you do not bear

The visioning powers of souls who dare

   To pierce the material screen.

   “Morning, noon, and night,

Mid those funereal shades that seem

The uncanny scenery of a dream,

Figures dance to a mind with sight,

And music and laughter like floods of light

   Make all the precincts gleam.

   “It is a poet’s bower,

Through which there pass, in fleet arrays,

Long teams of all the years and days,

Of joys and sorrows, of earth and heaven,

That meet mankind in its ages seven,

   An aion in an hour.”