A House with a History

There is a house in a city street

Some past ones made their own;

Its floors were criss-crossed by their feet,

And their babblings beat

From ceiling to white hearth-stone.

And who are peopling its parlours now?

Who talk across its floor?

Mere freshlings are they, blank of brow,

Who read not how

Its prime had passed before

Their raw equipments, scenes, and says

Afflicted its memoried face,

That had seen every larger phase

Of human ways

Before these filled the place.

To them that house's tale is theirs,

No former voices call

Aloud therein. Its aspect bears

Their joys and cares

Alone, from wall to wall.

A quote from a Hardy novel

“To see persons looking with children's eyes at any ordinary scenery, is a proof that they possess the charming faculty of drawing new sensations from an old experience...” (Desperate Remedies)

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