A man comes to the speaker’s door, ragged and ancient-looking, and the speaker cannot place him. Before any real conversation can happen, the stranger moans, staggers, and dies on the floor. The rest of the poem is the speaker’s unsettled questioning: Who was he? What did he want—love, warning, curse, hunger, fear? The speaker insists he never harmed such a person, but the questions feel defensive. The poem creates a mood of dread and guilt, as if the dead man represents something the speaker has failed to remember or acknowledge. The phrase “rags of memory” suggests the visitor is not just a person but a return of the past—shameful, neglected, and impossible to identify. The title “Alma Mater” hints that this ghost may be tied to school days or youthful origins, now decayed.
Alma Mater — Summary
He knocked, and I beheld him at the door-- A vision for the gods to verify. “What battered ancientry is this,” thought I, “And when, if ever, did we meet before?” But ask him as I might, I got no more For answer than a moaning and a cry: Too late to parley, but in time to die, He staggered, and lay shapeless on the floor. When had I known him? And what brought him here? Love, warning, malediction, hunger, fear? Surely I never thwarted such as he?-- Again, what soiled obscurity was this: Out of what scum, and up from what abyss, Had they arrived--these rags of memory?