The Empty House II

The door was gone, the jambs aslant, awry, The roof grown over with the mosses slow, The windows stared with blank and empty eye, Half the panes gone. The flagstones grinned below In gaping cracks. The foolish cattle came About the orchard, where the unpruned trees Held to the sky white boughs of trembling flame, And long wild grasses brushed about our knees. The dumb house called to us, the black, wide door Stood open for us long and stood in vain : Sighing we guessed those old walls held a store Of rest for us when we should come again

Into the hollow, long and green and still — Then turned away to cross the further hill.