Classic Poem

Sometimes, within the brain's old ghostly house,
I hear, far off, at some forgotten door,
A music and an eerie faint carouse,
And stir of echoes down the creaking floor,

And then I rise and through the dusty gloom
Grope with swift fingers as a blind man goes,
Half sensing, half remembering the room,
Building the image of the world he knows,

And fumbling so down lightless passages
And winding stairs and windowless dark halls,
Now beckoned by the music's faint excess,
Now lost and listening at unsounding walls,

I come at last where, bolted in the stone,
A ruined door leans inward, and beyond
The voices clamor and the tune is blown
In swirl and silence of wind-troubled sound.

And then, impassioned of the thronging gods,
Eager of beauty, unlock bolts and bars,—
Alone, with grinning head that nods and nods,
Myself stands gibbering against the stars.