THE HOUSE WHERE I WAS BORN

It stands as in the olden days, 
A simple, plain abode;
Amid the spreading evergreens,
Beside the country road.
‘Tis old and weather-beaten now,
Deserted and forlorn;
And yet ‘tis beautiful to me- 
The house where I was born.

‘Twas years ago I saw it last, 
While wandering there alone,
Through yard and gateway long unused 
And pathways overgrown.
I stood on the now-creaking steps, 
As oft in days of yore;
And as I trod the long, low porch
I passed the unclosed door.

There lingered in each vacant room 
A silence most profound,
And yet each step to fancy’s ear, 
Gave back a ghostly sound;
And fitful shadows of the dead 
Upon the walls were cast,
While every foot-fall brought to me 
An echo from the past.

I found the room where once had stood
My little trundle bed;
Where oft my mother sang to me, 
To ease my aching head.
I sought the fireplace deep and wide, 
Where in the wintry days,
We used to sit a happy group, 
Before its cheerful blaze.

I touched the mantel where the clock 
Once stood against the wall,
And thought of that once happy group, 
But it had vanished all:
For some had gone, I knew not where; 
And some were in the west;
And some had old and feeble grown; 
And some were laid to rest.

Within the garden waste I found, 
A rosebush lingering still;
I traced the path that led me to 
The spring beneath the hill:
The gurgling music of the brook,
Still floated on the air;
But O, to me, how sad its tone, 
As I stood lonely there.

Each scene wore a familiar look; 
Familiar, yet so strange;
For turn where’er I would, I found, 
The tragedy of change;
And every silent witness there, 
The message did unfold,
That everything for which we care,
Must alter and grow old.

But more to me in that sad hour, 
Than all the wealth of kings,
That picture of my faded home, 
Which to my memory clings.
‘Tis old and weather-beaten now,-
Deserted and forlorn;
And yet ‘tis beautiful to me-
The house where I was born.

S. B. Luckett
1908