It was only a little house of two rooms—
Almost like a child’s play-house—
With scarce five acres of ground around it;
And I had so many children to feed
And school and clothe, and a wife who was sick
From bearing children.
One day lawyer Whitney came along
And proved to me that Christian Dallman,
Who owned three thousand acres of land,
Had bought the eighty that adjoined me
In eighteen hundred and seventy-one
For eleven dollars, at a sale for taxes,
While my father lay in his mortal illness.
So the quarrel arose and I went to law.
But when we came to the proof,
A survey of the land showed clear as day
I have two monuments besides this granite obelisk:
One, the house I built on the hill,
With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate.
The other, the lake-front in Chicago,
Where the railroad keeps a switching yard,
With whistling engines and crunching wheels
And smoke and soot thrown over the city,
And the crash of cars along the boulevard,—
A blot like a hog-pen on the harbor
Of a great metropolis, foul as a sty.
I helped to give this heritage
To generations yet unborn, with my vote
In the House of Representatives,
And the lure of the thing was to be at rest
From the never—ending fright of need,
And to give my daughters gentle breeding,
The new red houses spring like plants
In level rows
Of reddish herbage that bristles and slants
Its square shadows.
The pink young houses show one side bright
Flatly assuming the sun,
And one side shadow, half in sight,
Half-hiding the pavement-run;
Where hastening creatures pass intent
On their level way,
Threading like ants that can never relent
And have nothing to say.
Bare stems of street-lamps stiffly stand
At random, desolate twigs,
To testify to a blight on the land
That has stripped their sprigs.
Now that a crimson rambler
begins to crawl over the house
of our two lives —
Now that a red curve
winds across the shingles —
Now that hands
washed in early sunrises
climb and spill scarlet
on a white lattice weave —
Now that a loop of blood
is written on our roof
and reaching around a chimney —
How are the two lives of this house
to keep strong hands and strong hearts?
Quietly I closed the door.
Then I said to my soul:
"I shall never come back,
Back to this haunted room
Where Sorrow and I have slept."
I turned from that hated door
And passed through the House of Life,
Through its ghostly rooms and glad
And its corridors dim with age.
Then lightly I crossed a threshold
Where the casements showed the sun
And I entered an unknown room,--
And my heart went cold,
For about me stood that Chamber of Pain
I had thought to see no more!
Listen!
Footsteps
Are they,
That falter through the gloom,
That echo through the lonely chambers
Of our house of life?
Listen!
Did a door close?
Did a whisper waken?
Did a ghostly something
Sigh across the dusk?
From the mournful silence
Something, something went!
Far down some shadowy passage
Faintly closed a door--
And O how empty lies
Sweet timber land
Where soft winds blow
The high green tree
And fan away the fog!
Ah fragrant stream
Where thirsty creatures go
And strong black men
Hew the heavy log!
Oh broken house
Crumbling there alone,
Wanting me!
Oh silent tree
Must I always be
A wild bird
Riding the wind
And screaming bitterly?
My house is damp as damp can be,
It stands on London clay.
And if I move unthinkingly
It shakes in a most alarming way.
Mayhap it will all come down on me
One day.
But through the window I can see
The most enchanting apple-tree.
In spring-time, there are daffodils
And primroses on little hills,
And high within my apple-tree
A blackbird comes and sings to me;
On the black branch he sits and sings
Of birds and nests and eggs and things.
I can't remember, as I hear,
That old grey London lies so near.
There is a tree, by day,
That, at night,
Has a shadow,
A hand huge and black,
With fingers long and black.
All through the dark,
Against the white man’s house,
In the little wind,
The black hand plucks and plucks
At the bricks.
The bricks are the color of blood and very small.
Is it a black hand,
Or is it a shadow?
I know you are too dear to stay;
You are so exquisitely sweet:
My lonely house will thrill some day
To echoes of your eager feet.
I hold your words within my heart.
So few, so infinitely dear;
Watching your fluttering hands I start
At the corroding touch of fear.
A faint, unearthly music rings
From you to Heaven — it is not far!
A mist about your beauty clings
Like a thin cloud before a star.
My heart shall keep the child I knew.
When you are really gone from me.
And spend its life remembering you
As shells remember the lost sea.
I went back to a place I knew
When I was very, very small ;
The same old yellow roses grew
Against the same old wall.
Each thing I knew was in its place;
The well, the white stones by the road,
The box-hedge with its cobweb lace,
And a small spotted toad.
And yet the place seemed changed and still ;
The house itself had shrunk, I know.
And then my eyes began to fill —
For I had always loved it so !
I shall not be afraid any more.
Either by night or day ;
What would it profit me to be afraid
With you away?
Now I am brave. In the dark night alone
All through the house I go,
Locking the doors and making windows fast
When sharp winds blow.
For there is only sorrow in my heart ;
There is no room for fear.
But how I wish I were afraid again,
My dear, my dear!