Haunted Houses by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

At the beginning and end are pictures of the two houses Longfellow lived in. The other pictures are interiors of these houses. He lived for 35 years in the first house and the rest of his life in the second.  It seems that the video ends with three different houses but actually they are same house at different times in history.  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadswort...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longfell...

The poem was written in 1858.

The verse that I find most interesting is this one:

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

Instinct is defined in the dictionary as "An inborn pattern of behavior" or "an innate capability or aptitude" or "motivation or impulse".   So instinct is something we inherit, it is encoded in our DNA.  

We are all a collection of inherited survival strategies.  Motivations and behavior patterns are encoded in our DNA.   If you have raised kids or kittens you will have seen ample proof of this, they are born knowing how to behave like children or cats. The survival purpose of some of the things we do is hard to fathom but if it is not uncommon then it will have a survival advantage, though not necessarily for the individual.  We are capable of being altruist and self-sacrificing but so are other animals, even insects.   The higher purpose is only the purpose of the gene pool, not "the  influence of an unseen star".   A computer could be programmed to make ethical decisions, it just has to follow the direction "maximise survival".  The argument fails if you can come up with an exception to the rule.  

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.