Classic Poem

O CURIOUS clay-built tenement,
Thou art no longer fresh and fair;
Thy time-stained walls are bowed and bent,
Thy windows much the worse for wear.

Thy sunken eaves, discolored thatch,
Distorted portal, creaking stair,
And columns, marred by seam and scratch,
Are ruined all, beyond repair.

And yet, me seems, it is not long
Since thou wert new, erect and right—
Thy jointed timbers firm and strong,
Thy facade fair, thy windows bright.

Now thou art shaken by the storm,
And pervious to the wind and cold;
No fires within can keep thee warm,
Or free thy walls from damp and mold.

Yet, in this ruin, grim and gray,
My soul sits dreaming pleasant dreams,
Of some fair country far away,
Beyond the hills where sunset gleams.

And often when the stars appear,
And silence falls on fields and fells,
Listening, she hears, or seems to hear,
In that fair land the vesper bells.

And in her dream she hears the tread
Of friends beloved gone before,
And knows they are not lost, not dead,
But dwellers on that unseen shore.

And, ever as the sweet bells chime,
She longs to break earth's bars and bands,
To find, in that celestial clime,
Her home—her house not made with hands.