It's just a heap of ruin, A drunken brick carouse -- This thing my spirit grew in That once was called a house. An attic where I scribbled Through baking summer days, While street-pianos nibbled At the patient Marseillaise. The spider-landlord squatted In a web of dinner-smells, And people slowly rotted In little gossip-hells. I hated all I learned there-- And yet I could have cried For a little oil I burned there, A little dream that died. |