A pair of walkers spends a full morning moving through an unspoiled spring landscape—over furze and grass, up steep turf, and down narrow rabbit tracks. Pheasants and rabbits are so used to the quiet that they barely react. Far below, near a farm, the only human figures are two ploughmen resting against a hedge, almost swallowed by young may buds and primroses. The speaker’s attention lingers on these small, warm details rather than on any destination. The overall mood is calm, slow, and increasingly remote. Then the walkers climb through tangled coppices and half-leaved hazels, and through thinning branches they glimpse the chimneys of an old house that has clearly stood empty and isolated for years. That final sight shifts the tone just slightly: the day’s peaceful wandering ends with a faint tug of melancholy and curiosity about the abandoned place. It is as if the whole landscape has been leading toward this quiet discovery.
The Empty House I — Summary
We walked all morning over furze and grass, And climbed steep tufted heights against the sun, Went down the shaven tracks, where rabbits pass, And unalarmed the scuttling pheasants run.
There were no men in sight, save at a farm, Where, far below, we saw, about midday, Two ploughmen lying lapped about with warm Rank growings of the hedge. Green buds of may Hung over them unopened, primroses Were yellow round their bodies. On we went, Up a long slope through tangled coppices, Where half-fledged hazels on the pathway leant, Till suddenly we saw through thinning boughs The chimneys of an old long-lonely house.