Classic Poem

Behind my house are windows,
Each lit with yellow flame,
And each one is a little world
Set in a little frame.

A shop-girl, through her mirror,
Looks at her ashen face.
Below her, in a peignoir
Of shabby, dirty lace,

A woman, stout and lazy,
Sits playing solitaire;
Disheveled is her ill-lit room,
And tumbled is her hair.

There is one little window
Set high above the rest;
I see the edge of an iron bed,
And a young girl thinly dressed.

Her face is full of sorrow —
One seldom sees her laugh;
Each night she bends above an old
And faded photograph.

She takes it from the bureau
In that small, stuffy place;
One evening, I could almost see
The tears upon her face,

When the wild gas-jet flickered
Above her heavy hair.
That whole long night I saw her,
An image of despair,

Beside her tiny window
Gazing at the white moon.
I wondered what her life must be —
Had Love gone by so soon?

A week dragged on; her shutters
Were drawn, as if to hide
The little drama of her world;
And then — one night — she died.

She killed herself. I read the truth,
Hidden among the news —
A little item, stale enough:
How many love — and lose!

Three days — and then another girl
Took up her story there.
Two flights below, a woman still
Sat playing solitaire,

In the same shabby peignoir
Of yellow, dirty lace,
And the poor shop-girl, in her glass,
Looked at her pallid face.

Behind my house are windows,
Each lit with yellow flame;
Each is a world for some one
Who plays the old, old game.

And when one world is emptied,
Through terror or disgrace,
How soon another brave one comes
To fill the vacant place!