The speaker looks back to his earliest memory: a narrow, dark house and street, long grass, and one narrow shaft of sunlight cutting through the gloom. He remembers towering timber-stacks and the men who carried the wood away hour after hour, only for new stacks to rise; as a child he watched them with wonder and fear, especially the men resting high up “on the new-built cloud.” But the brightest gold in this dark world is Florence’s hair shining on the grass. Now he is old, and the grass covers that brightness, suggesting she is gone. The mood is quiet and elegiac: light and memory feel precious because shadow, labor, and time eventually take everything.
The First House — Summary
That is the earliest thing that I remember-- The narrow house in the long narrow street, Dark rooms within and darkness out of doors Where grasses in the garden lift in the wind, Long grasses clinging round unsteady feet. The sunlight through one narrow passage pours, As through the keyhole into a dusty room, Striking with a golden rod the greening gloom. The tall, tall timber-stacks have yet been kind, Letting the sun fling his rod clear between, Lest there should be no gold upon the green, And no light then for a child to dream upon, And day be of day's brightness all forlorn. I saw those timber piles first dark and tall, And then men clambered up, and stumbled down, Each with a heavy and long timber borne Upon broad shoulders, leather-covered, bent. Hour after hour, day after day they went, Until the piles were gone and a new sky Stretched high and white above the garden wall. And then fresh piles crept slowly up and up, The strong men staggering, more cruelly bowed, Till at last they lay idle on the top Looking down from their height on things so small, While I looked wondering and fearful up At the strong men at rest on the new-built cloud. But there was other gold than the sun's sparse gold-- Florence's hair, its brightness lying still Upon my mind as then upon the grass. Now the grass covers it and I am old, Remembering but her hair and that long grass, And the great wood-stacks threatening to fall-- When all dark things will.