I was sitting,
        She was knitting,
And the portraits of our fore-folk hung around;
    When there struck on us a sigh;
    "Ah—what is that?" said I:
"Was it not you?" said she. "A sigh did sound."

        I had not breathed it,
        Nor the night-wind heaved it,
And how it came to us we could not guess;
    And we looked up at each face
    Framed and glazed there in its place,
Still hearkening; but thenceforth was silentness.

        Half in dreaming,
        "Then its meaning,"
Said we, "must be surely this; that they repine
    That we should be the last
    Of stocks once unsurpassed,
And unable to keep up their sturdy line."

1916.