A STATELY house I passed to-day, Familiar when the world was gay. How the years fleeting take our lives! Nought of that joyous Past survives. Blind casements, railings red with rust, Dumb doorways choked with leaves and dust, And see! the staring placard cold -- "This noble mansion to be sold." Nigh thirty years have passed away Since each year passing bloomed in May; Nigh thirty years, since side by side, The youthful bridegroom and his bride Passed careless through that lofty door, Where now their feet shall come no more. All splendours that to wealth belong Were theirs of feast and dance and song, The gliding lamps that choked the street, The thunder of high-stepping feet; The lights, the liveried crowd without, The wafted strains, the linkmen's shout; The jewelled throng that scaled the stair; The star-decked Great, the white-robed Fair; And when the whirling town grew still, Grey on the sunny oak-crowned hill, The gabled grange, amid the fern; Last, ere the sere leaves ceased to burn, The swallow-flights to chase the sun. Spring blossoms, bright ere Yule was done, And by the purple waters calm, The palace gleaming thro' the palm. Nigh thirty happy tranquil years, Child-voices, homely hopes and fears; Young girls, springing sweet and good From infancy to maidenhood. Soon joyous bridals, year by year Unbroken welfare, scarce a tear, Only the bright home stiller grown When half the nestling brood had flown. Last, ere chill age o'ertook them, then, Such is the lot of mortal men, The pitiless call too early come, To break the tranquil hush of home, The fair wife summoned first, then he, The sad sire fading gradually. And so the end; the nest grown cold, The orphaned lives I know not where; Blind casements, dust, and everywhere, Dim on the dense autumnal air, Time's epitaph on Rank and Gold -- "This noble mansion to be sold." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: GODWIN JAMES by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: TOM MERRITT by EDGAR LEE MASTERS IN PICCADILLY by ISAAC ROSENBERG THE POET (2) by ISAAC ROSENBERG THE UNDERGRADUATE KILLED IN BATTLE; OXFORD, 1915 by GEORGE SANTAYANA MILITARY MIND by CHARLIE SMITH |