The House That Was

Related poetry:

1. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 02: One, from his high bright window in a tower One, from his high bright window in a tower, Leans out, as evening falls, And sees the advancing curtain of the shower Splashing its silver on roofs and walls: Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city, And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea, Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark […]...
2. The Dark House Dusk in the rain-soaked garden, And dark the house within. A door creaked: someone was early To watch the dawn begin. But he stole away like a thief In the chilly, star-bright air: Though the house was shuttered for slumber, He had left one wakeful there. Nothing moved in the garden. Never a bird would […]...
3. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 01: The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light. The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east: And lights wink out through the windows, one by one. A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night. Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun. And the wandering one, the inquisitive […]...
4. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 07: The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light. The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east: And lights wink out through the windows, one by one. A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night. Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun. And the wandering one, the inquisitive […]...
5. Too little way the House must lie Too little way the House must lie From every Human Heart That holds in undisputed Lease A white inhabitant Too narrow is the Right between Too imminent the chance Each Consciousness must emigrate And lose its neighbor once...
6. The House This poem has a door, a locked door, And curtains drawn against the day, But at night the lights come on, one In each room, and the neighbors swear They hear music and the sound of dancing. These days the neighbors will swear To anything, but that is not why The house is locked up […]...
7. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 7. Dark house, by which once more I s Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand, A hand that can be clasp’d no more Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door. […]...
8. There's been a Death, in the Opposite House There’s been a Death, in the Opposite House, As lately as Today I know it, by the numb look Such Houses have alway The Neighbors rustle in and out The Doctor drives away A Window opens like a Pod Abrupt mechanically Somebody flings a Mattress out The Children hurry by They wonder if it died […]...
9. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 05: The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain. . . It eddies around pale lilac lamps, and falls Down golden-windowed walls. We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain, We do not remember the red roots whence we rose, But we know that we rose and walked, that after a while […]...
10. The Deserted House Life and Thought have gone away Side by side, Leaving door and windows wide. Careless tenants they! All within is dark as night: In the windows is no light; And no murmur at the door, So frequent on its hinge before. Close the door; the shutters close; Or through the windows we shall see The […]...
11. City Dead-House, The BY the City Dead-House, by the gate, As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor, I curious pause-for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought; Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d-it lies on the damp brick pavement; The divine woman, her body-I see the Body-I look on it alone, That house once full […]...
12. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 07: Porcelain You see that porcelain ranged there in the window- Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds, And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy? See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges! They’re works of art-minutely seen and felt, Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure To spend your blood like this? Study them. […]...
13. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 08: The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city, Over the pale grey tumbled towers,- And settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls. Along damp sinuous streets it crawls, Curls like a dream among the motionless trees And seems to freeze. The fog slips ghostlike into a thousand rooms, Whirls over sleeping […]...
14. The House In The Woods At the back of the houses there is the wood. While there is a leaf of summer left, the wood Makes sounds I can put somewhere in my song, Has paths I can walk, when I wake, to good Or evil: to the cage, to the oven, to the House In the Wood. It is […]...
15. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 11: Snow falls. The sky is grey, and sullenly glares Snow falls. The sky is grey, and sullenly glares With purple lights in the canyoned street. The fiery sign on the dark tower wreathes and flares. . . The trodden grass in the park is covered with white, The streets grow silent beneath our feet. . . The city dreams, it forgets its past to-night. […]...
16. Washington McNeely Rich, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford, The while my life went on, […]...
17. The House with Nobody in It Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black. I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for A minute And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in It. I never have seen […]...
18. In the shadow of a broken house In the shadow of a broken house, Down a deserted street, Propt walls, cold hearths, and phantom stairs, And the silence of dead feet – Locked wildly in one another’s arms I saw two lovers meet. And over that hearthless house aghast Rose from the mind’s abyss Lost stars and ruined, peering moons, Worlds overshadowing […]...
19. The Props assist the House The Props assist the House Until the House is built And then the Props withdraw And adequate, erect, The House support itself And cease to recollect The Auger and the Carpenter Just such a retrospect Hath the perfected Life A past of Plank and Nail And slowness then the Scaffolds drop Affirming it a Soul....
20. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 10: Sudden Death ‘Number four-the girl who died on the table- The girl with golden hair-‘ The purpling body lies on the polished marble. We open the throat, and lay the thyroid bare. . . One, who held the ether-cone, remembers Her dark blue frightened eyes. He heard the sharp breath quiver, and saw her breast More hurriedly […]...
21. Sonnet XIII IN that proud port, which her so goodly graceth, Whiles her faire face she reares vp to the skie: And to the ground her eie lids low embaseth, Most goodly temperature ye may descry, Myld humblesse mixt with awfull maiesty, For looking on the earth whence she was borne: Her minde remembreth her mortalitie, What […]...
22. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 03: One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand, With wave upon slowly shattering wave, Turned to the city of towers as evening fell; And slowly walked by the darkening road toward it; And saw how the towers darkened against the sky; And across the distance heard the toll of a bell. Along the […]...
23. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 07: Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers The golden lights go out. . . The yellow windows darken, the shades are drawn, In thousands of rooms we sleep, we await the dawn, We lie face down, we dream, We cry aloud with terror, half rise, or seem To stare at the ceiling or walls. […]...
24. Gravelly Run I don’t know somehow it seems sufficient To see and hear whatever coming and going is, Losing the self to the victory of stones and trees, Of bending sandpit lakes, crescent Round groves of dwarf pine: For it is not so much to know the self As to know it as it is known by […]...
25. The House They are building a house Half a block down And I sit up here With the shades down Listening to the sounds, The hammers pounding in nails, Thack thack thack thack, And then I hear birds, And thack thack thack, And I go to bed, I pull the covers to my throat; They have been […]...
26. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 06: Over the darkened city, the city of towers Over the darkened city, the city of towers, The city of a thousand gates, Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers, Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates, The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls, With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls. On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea, […]...
27. Morning in the Burned House In the burned house I am eating breakfast. You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast, Yet here I am. The spoon which was melted scrapes against The bowl which was melted also. No one else is around. Where have they gone to, brother and sister, Mother and father? Off along the shore, […]...
28. The House on the Hill They are all gone away, The House is shut and still, There is nothing more to say. Through broken walls and gray The winds blow bleak and shrill: They are all gone away. Nor is there one to-day To speak them good or ill: There is nothing more to say. Why is it then we […]...
29. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 01: The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea. The walls and towers are warmed and gleam. Sounds go drowsily up from streets and wharves. The city stirs like one that is half in dream. And the mist flows up by dazzling walls and windows, Where one by one we wake and rise. We […]...
30. The house where I was born (08) I open my eyes, yes, it’s the house where I was born, Exactly as it was and nothing more. The same small dining room whose window Gives onto a peach tree that never grows. A man and a woman are seated At this window, facing one another, They are talking, for once. And the child […]...
31. My House I have a house I’ve lived in long: I can’t recall my going in. ‘Twere better bartered for a song Ere ruin, rot and rust begin. When it was fresh and fine and fair, I used it with neglect, I fear; But now I husband it with care And cherish it form year to year. […]...
32. A Poem About George Doty In The Death House Lured by the wall, and drawn To stare below the roof, Where pigeons nest aloof From prowling cats and men, I count the sash and bar Secured to granite stone, And note the daylight gone, Supper and silence near. Close to the wall inside, Immured, empty of love, A man I have wondered of Lies […]...
33. I Go Back To The House For A Book I turn around on the gravel And go back to the house for a book, Something to read at the doctor’s office, And while I am inside, running the finger Of inquisition along a shelf, Another me that did not bother To go back to the house for a book Heads out on his own, […]...
34. The New House NOW first, as I shut the door, I was alone In the new house; and the wind Began to moan. Old at once was the house, And I was old; My ears were teased with the dread Of what was foretold, Nights of storm, days of mist, without end; Sad days when the sun Shone […]...
35. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 04: Nightmare ‘Draw three cards, and I will tell your future. . . Draw three cards, and lay them down, Rest your palms upon them, stare at the crystal, And think of time. . . My father was a clown, My mother was a gypsy out of Egypt; And she was gotten with child in a strange […]...
36. Urbs Coronata (Song for the City College of New York) O youngest of the giant brood Of cities far-renowned; In wealth and power thou hast passed Thy rivals at a bound; And now thou art a queen, New York; And how wilt thou be crowned? “Weave me no palace-wreath of pride,” The royal city said; “Nor forge […]...
37. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 01: Clairvoyant ‘This envelope you say has something in it Which once belonged to your dead son-or something He knew, was fond of? Something he remembers?- The soul flies far, and we can only call it By things like these. . . a photograph, a letter, Ribbon, or charm, or watch. . . ‘ . . . […]...
38. The House of Socrates FOR Socrates a House was built, Of but inferiour Size; Not highly Arch’d, nor Carv’d, nor Gilt; The Man, ’tis said, was Wise. But Mob despis’d the little Cell, That struck them with no Fear; Whilst Others thought, there should not dwell So great a Person there. How shou’d a due Recourse be made To […]...
39. Who occupies this House? Who occupies this House? A Stranger I must judge Since No one know His Circumstance ‘Tis well the name and age Are writ upon the Door Or I should fear to pause Where not so much as Honest Dog Approach encourages. It seems a curious Town Some Houses very old, Some newly raised this Afternoon, […]...
40. The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm The house was quiet and the world was calm. The reader became the book; and summer night Was like the conscious being of the book. The house was quiet and the world was calm. The words were spoken as if there was no book, Except that the reader leaned above the page, Wanted to lean, […]...