The Old House

Mossy gray stands the House, four-square to the wind,
Embosomed in the hills. The garden old
Of yew and box and fishpond speaks her mind,
Sweet-ordered, quaint, recluse, fold within fold
Of quietness; but true and choice and kind--
A sober casket for a heart of gold.

Maurice Henry Hewlett

Maurice Henry Hewlett was an English historical novelist, poet, and essayist. His works often blended history and romance and he was known for his vivid characterizations and settings. Among his many works, 'The Forest Lovers' and 'Richard Yea-and-Nay' are some of the best known. Hewlett was a contemporary and sometimes critic of modernist trends in literature, favoring more traditional storytelling techniques.

Maurice Henry Hewlett

Clytié

Maurice Henry Hewlett, Simple Poetry

Snowy Night

Maurice Henry Hewlett, Simple Poetry

Blue Iris

Maurice Henry Hewlett, Simple Poetry

Absence

Maurice Henry Hewlett, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Ageing House

When the walls were red
That now are seen
To be overspread
With a mouldy green,
A fresh fair head
Would often lean
From the sunny casement
And scan the scene,
While blithely spoke the wind to the little sycamore tree.

But storms have raged
Those walls about,
And the head has aged
That once looked out;
And zest is suaged
And trust is doubt,
And slow effacement
Is rife throughout,
While fiercely girds the wind at the long-limbed sycamore tree!

Thomas Hardy

The Old House.

Quaint and forgotten, by an unused road,
An old house stands: around its doors the dense
    Blue iron-weeds grow high;
The chipmunks make a highway of its fence;
And on its sunken flagstones slug and toad
    Silent as lichens lie.

The timid snake upon its hearth's cool sand
Sleeps undisturbed; the squirrel haunts its roof;
    And in the clapboard sides
Of closets, dim with many a spider woof,
Like the uncertain tapping of a hand,
    The beetle-borer hides.

Above its lintel, under mossy eaves,
The mud-wasps build their cells; and in the floor
    Of its neglected porch
The black bees nest. Through each deserted door,
Vague as a phantom's footsteps, steal the leaves,
    And dropped cones of the larch.

But come with me when sunset...

Madison Julius Cawein

The House Of Silence

"That is a quiet place -
That house in the trees with the shady lawn."
" - If, child, you knew what there goes on
You would not call it a quiet place.
Why, a phantom abides there, the last of its race,
And a brain spins there till dawn."

"But I see nobody there, -
Nobody moves about the green,
Or wanders the heavy trees between."
" - Ah, that's because you do not bear
The visioning powers of souls who dare
To pierce the material screen.

"Morning, noon, and night,
Mid those funereal shades that seem
The uncanny scenery of a dream,
Figures dance to a mind with sight,
And music and laughter like floods of light
Make all the precincts gleam.

"It is a poet's bower,
Through which there pass, in fleet arrays,
Long teams of all th...

Thomas Hardy

The Old House

A very, very old house I know-
And ever so many people go,
Past the small lodge, forlorn and still,
Under the heavy branches, till
Comes the blank wall, and there's the door.
Go in they do; come out no more.
No voice says aught; no spark of light
Across that threshold cheers the sight;
Only the evening star on high
Less lonely makes a lonely sky,
As, one by one, the people go
Into that very old house I know.

Walter De La Mare

The Old Stone House

Nothing on the grey roof, nothing on the brown,
Only a little greening where the rain drips down;
Nobody at the window, nobody at the door,
Only a little hollow which a foot once wore;
But still I tread on tiptoe, still tiptoe on I go,
Past nettles, porch, and weedy well, for oh, I know
A friendless face is peering, and a still clear eye
Peeps closely through the casement
    as my step goes by.

Walter De La Mare

Old Homes

Old homes among the hills! I love their gardens;
Their old rock fences, that our day inherits;
Their doors, round which the great trees stand like wardens;
Their paths, down which the shadows march like spirits;
Broad doors and paths that reach bird-haunted gardens.

I see them gray among their ancient acres,
Severe of front, their gables lichen-sprinkled, -
Like gentle-hearted, solitary Quakers,
Grave and religious, with kind faces wrinkled, -
Serene among their memory-hallowed acres.

Their gardens, banked with roses and with lilies -
Those sweet aristocrats of all the flowers -
Where Springtime mints her gold in daffodillies,
And Autumn coins her marigolds in showers,
And all the hours are toilless as the lilies.

I love their orchards where the g...

Madison Julius Cawein