The cold light dies, the candles glow,

The wind whirls down the bare allée

Outside my gleaming window-panes

The phantom populations go,

Blown, amid leaves, above, below.

Yet these are solid German folk

Outside, beneath the thinning planes

And the reflections that awoke

At candle time upon my panes

Are misty, unsubstantial gleams.

Only outside, obscurity,

The waning light, the cold blue beams

And rafts of shadow trick the eye;

So that the frozen passers-by

Look ghosts-and only real seems

My candle lighted, lonely place,

The gleaming windows and your face

Looking in likeness from the wall

Where the fantastic shadows fall …

Now the ghosts pass, the cold wind cries,

The leaves sift downwards, the world dies,

But in the shadows, lo! your eyes.