like a guilty thing

7
Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that an be clasp'd no more -
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here: but far away
The noise of life begins again.
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "from In Memoriam A. H. H."