Those forms we fancy shadows, those strange lights That flash on lone morasses, the quick wind That smites us by the roadside are the Night's Innumerable children. Unconfined By shroud or coffin, disembodied souls, Still on probation, steal into the air From ancient battlefields and churchyard knolls At the day's ending. Pestilence and despair Fly with the startled bats at set of sun; And wheresoever murders have been done, In crowded palaces or lonely woods, Where'er a soul has sold itself and lost Its high inheritance, there, hovering, broods Some mute, invisible, accursèd ghost.