haunted † each heart has haunted chambers where silent moonlight falls on the floor, mysterious footsteps and whispers along the walls mine at times is haunted by phantoms of the past as motionless as shadows by silent moonlight cast a form sits by the window that is not seen by day as soon as dawn approaches it vanishes away it sits there in the moonlight itself as pale and still and points with airy finger across the window-sill without before the window there stands a gloomy pine whose upward boughs wave downward as wave these thoughts of mine and underneath its branches lies still a little child who died upon life's threshold and never wept nor smiled a form sits by the window that is not seen by day as soon as dawn approaches it vanishes away what are ye, o pallid phantoms that haunt my troubled brain that vanish when day approaches at night return again what are ye, o pallid phantoms but statues without breath stand on the bridge, o'erarching the silent river of death a form sits by the window that is not seen by day as soon as dawn approaches it vanishes away ... 🪽🙏🪽... ~ † adapted from henry wadsworth longfellow, "the haunted chamber" birds of passage : flight the third :: boston : james osgood and co : 1873 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1365/1365-h/1365-h.htm#chap253 sound design and illustration by rjh and chat-gpt 6 astra (light)
