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That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveler's call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness. Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

'Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even Louder, and lifted his head:"Tell them I came, and no one answered. That I kept my word," he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward,

When the plunging hoofs were gone.

NOD

Softly along the road of evening,
In a twilight dim with rose,
Wrinkled with age, and drenched with
dew,

Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.

His drowsy flock streams on before him,
Their fleeces charged with gold,
To where the sun's last beam leans low
On Nod the shepherd's fold.