Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN OLD HOUSE BURNS, by ALYS TOWNES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN OLD HOUSE BURNS, by                    
First Line: He said once, 'I will build a viking ship
Last Line: And like a blackened mast fall, shattered, down.
Subject(s): Fire; Houses


He said once, "I will build a Viking ship
And pile my life upon it, and some hand
May push it off and set it all aflame
When I am dead." He said it half in jest.

She said in haste, "Don't talk about such things."
And he agreed, and they lived on and on
Among the books and pictures they had brought
Home from their ramblings over half the world.

He laughed, but could not stop their growing old.
And then he took to looking at his house
And fingering the contents of each room --
The tapestries, the tables, and the chairs,
The white Apollo with a cobweb now
Trailing from fingers that reached out to catch
His fleeing Daphne. Then one day he died.

The people said, "So tragic now when she
Is left alone that her house should catch fire."
Some said, "The place was tottering to fall,
And all the clumsy things that were inside
Were no use now the old man's dead and gone."

She only saw the one great chimney sway
And like a blackened mast fall, shattered, down.





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