The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (7.1895)

The House Desolate

By Rosamund Marriott Watson

So still the old house lies, so dull, so grey,
The dews of dawn forget to hallow it ;
Here come no sweet birds singing, night or day,
From these bare eaves no building swallows flit.

Sunk in dim dreams it lies as in a swoon—
Dreams of a distant city hid from sight,
The enchanted city of the sun and moon,
The golden market of the world’s delight,

Pale as the dead are they that dwell herein,
Worn with vain strife and wrung with vain regret;
Theirs but to watch the world go by to win
That glimmering goal their hearts remember yet.
They lean among the lilacs by the door,
To watch the winding road with wistful eyes,
The long, white, dusty way that nevermore
Shall bear them hope or wonder or surprise.

Sometimes