The Gray Folk

THE house, with blind unhappy face,
Stands lonely in the last year's corn,
And in the grayness of the morn
The gray folk come about the place.
By many pathways, gliding gray
They come past meadow, wood, and wold,
Come by the farm and by the fold
From the green fields of yesterday.
Past lock and chain and bolt and bar
They press, to stand about my bed,
And like the faces of the dead
I know their hidden faces are.
They will not leave me in the day
And when night falls they will not go,
Because I silenced, long ago,
The only voice that they obey.