Classic Poem

My heart is like an empty house,
The hostess being gone:
The halls are laughterless at noon,
The beds are cold at dawn.

My heart is like an empty house
That has not revel there,
With ashes on the hearth at night.
And winds upon the stair.

The glasses on the buffet stand
Unused for many a day,
The brazen fire-dogs grin and grin
A new, forsaken way.

The spiders weave along the wall
The sunbeams in a thread.
The echoes of old times drift by
Like shadows of the dead.

My heart is like an empty house
With all the windows down —
Save one, high in the cupola,
That looks beyond the town:

And ever at the window there
My soul looks out to see
If Phillada, my heart's desire,
Is coming back to me.

When she comes back the fires will light —
The guests will all return —
The wine will fill the cups, all night
The scented candles burn.

The halls will glow with light of love —
The shadows slip away.
At noon our laughter will out ring
Across the golden day.