The Haunted Chamber. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Third)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)



Each heart has its haunted chamber,
Where the silent moonlight falls!
On the floor are mysterious footsteps,
There are whispers along the walls!

And mine at times is haunted
By phantoms of the Past
As motionless as shadows
By the silent moonlight cast.

A form sits by the window,
That is not seen by day,
For as soon as the dawn approaches
It vanishes away.

It sits there in the moonlight
Itself as pale and still,
And points with its airy finger
Across the window-sill.

Without before the window,
There stands a gloomy pine,
Whose boughs wave upward and downward
As wave these thoughts of mine.

And underneath its branches
Is the grave of a little child,
Who died upon life's threshold,
And never wept nor smiled.

What are ye, O pallid phantoms!
That haunt my troubled brain?
That vanish when day approaches,
And at night return again?

What are ye, O pallid phantoms!
But the statues without breath,
That stand on the bridge overarching
The silent river of death?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

51 sec read
102

Quick analysis:

Scheme abxb xcxc defe xgag dhxh fixi Jxfx Jkxk
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 941
Words 172
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. more…

All Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poems | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Books

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