House and Man + 

One hour: as dim he and his house now look + 

As a reflection in a rippling brook, + 

While I remember him; but first, his house. + 

Empty it sounded. It was dark with forest boughs + 

That brushed the walls and made the mossy tiles + 

Part of the squirrels’ track. In all those miles + 

Of forest silence and forest murmur, only + 

One house⁠—“Lonely!” he said, “I wish it were lonely”⁠— + 

Which the trees looked upon from every side, + 

And that was his. + 

He waved good-bye to hide + 

A sigh that he converted to a laugh. + 

He seemed to hang rather than stand there, half + 

Ghost-like, half like a beggar’s rag, clean wrung + 

And useless on the brier where it has hung + 

Long years a-washing by sun and wind and rain. + 

But why I call back man and house again + 

Is that now on a beech-tree’s tip I see + 

As then I saw⁠—I at the gate, and he + 

In the house darkness⁠—a magpie veering about, + 

A magpie like a weathercock in doubt. + 