There are ghosts in the room. <br />As I sit here alone, from the dark corners there <br />They come out of the gloom, <br />And they stand at my side and they lean on my chair. <br /> <br />There's the ghost of a Hope <br />That lighted my days with a fanciful glow. <br />In her hand is the rope <br />That strangled her life out. Hope was slain long ago. <br /> <br />But her ghost comes to-night, <br />With its skeleton face and expressionless eyes, <br />And it stands in the light, <br />And mocks me, and jeers me with sobs and with sighs. <br /> <br />There's the ghost of a Joy, <br />A frail, fragile thing, and I prized it too much, <br />And the hands that destroy <br />Clasped it close, and it died at the withering touch. <br /> <br />There's the ghost of a Love, <br />Born with joy, reared with hope, died in pain and unrest, <br />But he towers above <br />All the others... this ghost: yet a ghost at the best. <br /> <br />I am weary, and fain <br />Would forget all these dead: but the gibbering host <br />Make my struggle in vain, <br />In each shadowy corner there lurketh a ghost.<br /><br />Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ghosts-42/
