Hauntings

In the grey tumult of these after years
 Oft silence falls; the incessant wranglers part;
And less-than-echoes of remembered tears
 Hush all the loud confusion of the heart;
And a shade, through the toss'd ranks of mirth and crying
 Hungers, and pains, and each dull passionate mood, --
Quite lost, and all but all forgot, undying,
 Comes back the ecstasy of your quietude.

So a poor ghost, beside his misty streams,
Is haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams,
 Hints of a pre-Lethean life, of men,
Stars, rocks, and flesh, things unintelligible,
 And light on waving grass, he knows not when,
And feet that ran, but where, he cannot tell.