Classic Poem

Often as alone I walk
Down this street houses talk to me
Of their youth, of their years,
Of their destiny and tears.

One, built for happiness
Now is shuttered with distress.
In it mould, to decay,
Nuptial gifts, night and day.
Once they showered a new bride,
Who of broken dreams died,
And were left by her decree,
In lone perpetuity,
There to mould uselessly.
For one gift, bound in gold,
Was a vengeful screed that told her
Of a mistress kept by him
Whom her fair girl-body, slim
As young chastity, adored;
And whom still she could but crave
Till death cooled her in the grave.

Near, another, grave and great,
Iron-barred at the gate,
Dark-curtained, stony, proud,
And with not a word too loud
At its door for elegance—
Such as mows in romance—
Tells me that it has all wealth—
Fame and rank, riches, power—
Save the one desired dower
Nature only gives—an heir.
And that in it, shorn of health,
Dwell in bitter-tongued despair
Two who loathingly look on
Childlessness at each new dawn.

Farther down stands a third,
Uttered like a noble word
By a race spent and gone—
Stands majestic and withdrawn.
Once aristocratic sway
Ruled its doors, wildly gay,
Filling it with a proud throng
Pageanting mid dance and song.
But the shabby boarder beds,
Now, where bluebloods laid their heads;
And through gilded hall and room
Transients in the gas-lit gloom
Feed—then on the grey stoop
Perch an envious gossip-group,
Pecking social prominence
As it passes in review;
Longing for it, with pretence
Of contempt, as lone hearts do.

At a corner stands a fourth,
Round which, west and north,
Runs a garden, walling in
Mania and blood-sin.
Here a mother, on a night
Under mad moonlight,
Drowned her child in the pool
Set amid the garden cool.
Yet it seems that her thought,
Piteously with fear fraught,
Merely was to wash it clean
Of heredity—plain seen.
For it was the love-fruit
Of a husband dissolute;
Who beholding it born blind
Drank the deeper, to forget.
Now he watches a wild face
Through the years with regret.

But not all thus are prey
To distress, or decay.
'Twixt the many on whose face
Life's contented commonplace
Yawns, or smirks with egotism,
One breathes of beauty's chrism.
Or another, like a rose
Blooms, at every day's close,
With expectant lights that pour
Fragrant love through the door,
When a key lifts the latch.
Or still sweeter, one, a shrine
Clad in ever-clinging vine,
Tells how none has ever dwelt
Long in it but glad has knelt.
Children pattering its floors,
Sweethearts vowing at its doors,
Wedded lovers, all have found
That its sill is holy ground.
Thus and thus, as I walk
Down this street houses talk to me
Of their youth, of their years—
Of all birth evokes—or biers.