Low Barometer
Low Barometer
Original Text
Poetical Works of Robert Bridges with The Testament of Beauty
but excluding the eight drama, 2nd edn. (London: Geoffrey Cumberlege,
Oxford University Press, 1953): 541-42.
1The south-wind strengthens to a gale,
2Across the moon the clouds fly fast,
3The house is smitten as with a flail,
4The chimney shudders to the blast.
5On such a night, when Air has loosed
6Its guardian grasp on blood and brain,
7Old terrors then of god or ghost
8Creep from their caves to life again;
10A haunted house. Tenants unknown
11Assert their squalid lease of sin
12With earlier title than his own.
13Unbodied presences, the pack'd
14Pollution and remorse of Time,
15Slipp'd from oblivion reënact
17Some men would quell the thing with prayer
18Whose sightless footsteps pad the floor,
19Whose fearful trespass mounts the stair
20Or burts the lock'd forbidden door.
21Some have seen corpses long interr'd
22Escape from hallowing control,
23Pale charnel forms -- nay ev'n have heard
24The shrilling of a troubled soul,
25That wanders till the dawn hath cross'd
26The dolorous dark, or Earth hath wound
27Closer her storm-spredd cloke, and thrust
28The baleful phantoms underground.
Notes
9] kens: knows.herits: OED defines as a verb taking an object, "inherits", but Bridges appears to use it as an intransitive verb. Back to Line
16] unhouseld: unforgiven, not having been unabsolved by the last rites of the church. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1926
Publication Notes
New Verse
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2003
Rhyme
Form