Best House Poems

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
...

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;

Have clapped my hands at him from the door
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The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.
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Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
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And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, 'Speak to us of Children.'

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
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"Unto Me?" I do not know you—
Where may be your House?
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September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
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The animal I really dig,
Above all others is the pig.
Pigs are noble. Pigs are clever,
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There's a light on in the attic.
Thought the house is dark and shuttered,
I can see a flickerin' flutter,
...

And one of the elders of the city said, "Speak to us of Good and Evil."

And he answered:
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Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love.
My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls,
Are gone from the house.
My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite
...

A stranger has come
To share my room in the house not right in the head,
A girl mad as birds
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The low yellow
moon above the
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I turn around on the gravel
and go back to the house for a book,
something to read at the doctor’s office,
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Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
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In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.
...

I have got my leave. Bid me farewell, my brothers!
I bow to you all and take my departure.

Here I give back the keys of my door
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O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods against the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!
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Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
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What you have heard is true. I was in his house.
His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His
daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the
night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol
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The red skies engulf the bay under
Whilst silence sweeps the current away
Islands, harbor, creeks, rocks and sholes
Soundings and anchoring
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O beautiful wine-bearer, bring forth the cup and put it to my lips
Path of love seemed easy at first, what came was many hardships.
With its perfume, the morning breeze unlocks those beautiful locks
The curl of those dark ringlets, many hearts to shreds strips.
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Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
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What can I say to you? How can I retract
All that that fool my voice has spoken -
Now that the facts are plain, the placid surface cracked,
The protocols of friendship broken?
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They are all gone away,
The house is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.
...

Then said a teacher, 'Speak to us of Teaching.'

And he said:
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This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
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Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown
we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
we drink it and drink it
we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined
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Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her---
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Woke up suddenly thinking I heard crying.
Rushed through the dark house.
Stopped, remembering. Stood looking
out at bright moonlight on concrete.
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The tempest calmed after bending the branches of the trees and leaning heavily upon the grain in the field. The stars appeared as broken remnants of lightning, but now silence prevailed over all, as if Nature's war had never been fought.

At that hour a young woman entered her chamber and knelt by her bed sobbing bitterly. Her heart flamed with agony but she could finally open her lips and say, 'Oh Lord, bring him home safely to me. I have exhausted my tears and can offer no more, oh Lord, full of love and mercy. My patience is drained and calamity is seeking possession of my heart. Save him, oh Lord, from the iron paws of War; deliver him from such unmerciful Death, for he is weak, governed by the strong. Oh Lord, save my beloved, who is Thine own son, from the foe, who is Thy foe. Keep him from the forced pathway to Death's door; let him see me, or come and take me to him.'
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The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
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Always for the first time
Hardly do I know you by sight
You return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle to my window
A wholly imaginary house
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As we are so wonderfully done with each other
We can walk into our separate sleep
On floors of music where the milkwhite cloak of childhood lies
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Hidden, oh hidden
in the high fog
the house we live in,
beneath the magnetic rock,
...

They are building a house
half a block down
and I sit up here
with the shades down
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Little maidens, when you look
On this little story-book,
Reading with attentive eye
Its enticing history,
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Black milk of daybreak we drink it at nightfall
we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
we drink it and drink it
we are digging a grave in the sky it is ample to lie there
...

The light along the hills in the morning
comes down slowly, naming the trees
white, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate.
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When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I'll not play hypocrite
To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
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A mason came forth and said, "Speak to us of Houses."

And he answered and said:
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Now the stone house on the lake front is finished and the
workmen are beginning the fence.
The palings are made of iron bars with steel points that
can stab the life out of any man who falls on them.
...

I

I had forgotten how the frogs must sound
After a year of silence, else I think
...

Don't worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.
...

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
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    A storm was coming, that was why it was dark. The wind was blowing the fronds of the palm trees off. They were maples. I looked out the window across the big lawn. The house was huge, full of children and old people. The lion was loose. Either because of the wind, or by malevolent human energy, which is the same thing, the cage had come open. Suppose a child walked outside!

    A child walked outside. I knew that I must protect him from the lion. I threw myself on top of the child. The lion roared over me. In the branches and the bushes there was suddenly a loud crackling. The lion cringed. I looked up and saw that the elephant was loose!
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This brand of soap has the same smell as once in the big
House he visited when he was eight: the walls of the bathroom open
To reveal a lawn where a great yellow ball rolls back through a hoop
To rest at the head of a mallet held in the hands of a child.
...

I came to the door of the House of Love
And knocked as the starry night went by;
And my true love cried "Who knocks?" and I said
"It is I."
...

A house near the hill
Lit up when a sunbeam broke
Through the alto clouds.
...

Reader Beware: Check weather all the cupboards in your house are closed and all your precious things are rat-free. Yes? Then you can read this. ‘Cause anytime, any minute, any second, a rat attack can occur in your house.

“Humans have developed,
Then why not us? ”
...

Do you not father me, nor the erected arm
For my tall tower's sake cast in her stone?
Do you not mother me, nor, as I am,
The lovers' house, lie suffering my stain?
...

I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.

The power of love came into me,
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I would like to sing someone to sleep,
have someone to sit by and be with.
I would like to cradle you and softly sing,
be your companion while you sleep or wake.
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This is the house of Bedlam.

This is the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
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These wet rocks where the tide has been,
Barnacled white and weeded brown
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
These wet rocks where the tide went down
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Loneliness like a good, old friend
visits my house to pour wine in the evening.
And we sit together, waiting for the moon,
and for your face to sparkle in every shadow.
...

I went to a house and walked up to the gate
A man came outside and his name was called Hate
He asked me a question would you like to come in?
I then thought for a moment hate is no kin
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The house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go.
...

...

Along the hard crust of deep snows,
To the secret, white house of yours,
So gentle and quiet – we both
Are walking, in silence half-lost.
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I scrub the long floorboards
in the kitchen, repeating
the motions of other women
who have lived in this house.
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What is he buzzing in my ears?
"Now that I come to die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?"
Ah, reverend sir, not I!
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AT the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful, fortress'd house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks--from the keep of the well-closed
doors,
...

The week after the funeral the house was cleared
Memories taken to the auctioneers to be sold off,
The polished sideboard and dining room table,
The picture frames now empty of smiling faces.
...

Part One


As night fell and the light glittered in the great house, the servants stood at the massive door awaiting the coming of the guests; and upon their velvet garments shown golden buttons.
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He lodged us in a spacious house,
And plenteous was our fare.
But now at every frugal meal
There's not a scrap to spare.
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To be an ape in little of the mountain-making mother
Like swarthy Cheops, but my own hands
For only slaves, is a far sweeter toil than to cut
Passions in verse for a sick people.
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As Ann came in one summer's day,
She felt that she must creep,
So silent was the clear cool house,
It seemed a house of sleep.
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I recently ran across a list Deborah and I created long ago
It contained the dreams for our perfect house...our ideal bungalow.

We called it our North Carolina Love Nest and it was to be our creed
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The song I came to sing
remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing
and in unstringing my instrument
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Now at last I have come to see what life is,
Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun,
And the brave victories that seem so splendid
Are never really won.
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This is the place that I love the best,
A little brown house, like a ground-bird's nest,
Hid among grasses, and vines, and trees,
Summer retreat of the birds and bees.
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O how all things are far removed
and long have passed away.
I do believe the star,
whose light my face reflects,
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Night fell over North Lebanon and snow was covering the villages surrounded by the Kadeesha Valley, giving the fields and prairies the appearance of a great sheet of parchment upon which the furious Nature was recording her many deeds. Men came home from the streets while silence engulfed the night.

In a lone house near those villages lived a woman who sat by her fireside spinning wool, and at her side was her only child, staring now at the fire and then at his mother.
...

The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth,--
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My wearied heart bade me farewell and left for the House of Fortune. As he reached that holy city which the soul had blessed and worshipped, he commenced wondering, for he could not find what he had always imagined would be there. The city was empty of power, money, and authority.

And my heart spoke to the daughter of Love saying, "Oh Love, where can I find Contentment? I heard that she had come here to join you."
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Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.

And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo wreathed with a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs.
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Life and Thought have gone away
Side by side,
Leaving door and windows wide.
Careless tenants they!
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I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more:
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
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With ease I make a million flowers bloom,
All at once I light up some suns, moons, stars,
In a passing whim I blow out the moonlight
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The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.

I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.
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Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path--how soft to pace!
This May -- what magic weather!
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I am a sculptor, a molder of form.
In every moment I shape an idol.
But then, in front of you, I melt them down
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On the unbreathing sides of hills
they play, a specklike girl and boy,
alone, but near a specklike house.
The Sun's suspended eye
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The winter apples have been picked, the garden turned.
Rain and wind have picked the maple leaves and gone.
The last of them now bank the house or have been burned.
None are left upon the trees or on the lawn.
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`Prisoner, tell me, who was it that bound you?'

`It was my master,' said the prisoner.
`I thought I could outdo everybody in the world in wealth and power,
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O you would clothe me in silken frocks
And house me from the cold,
And bind with bright bands my glossy locks,
And buy me chains of gold;
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I know a little country place
Where still my heart doth linger,
And o'er its fields is every grace
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Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly!--faster
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In that top corner of the house
A cobweb swaying in breeze
What made the breeze become the wind
A foul play..it blew butting blind
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Through the house give glimmering light
By the dead and drowsy fire
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ONE song, America, before I go,
I'd sing, o'er all the rest, with trumpet sound,
For thee--the Future.
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My soul lives in my body's house,
And you have both the house and her—
But sometimes she is less your own
Than a wild, gay adventurer;
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My Feet they haul me Round the House,
They Hoist me up the Stairs;
I only have to Steer them, and
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IN a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix'd house,
It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other;
Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories?
Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death;
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The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin
And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks
Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din;
‘We’re sure the Kaiser loves our dear old Tanks!’
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CALM on the bosom of thy God,
   Fair spirit, rest thee now!
E'en while with ours thy footsteps trod,
   His seal was on thy brow.
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Forgetfulness is like a song
That, freed from beat and measure, wanders.
Forgetfulness is like a bird whose wings are reconciled,
Outspread and motionless, --
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Elegant smile and a benign look,
I feel the power of his love,
with sane words of knowledge,
sitting in the ancestral house
...

One day a spider said to a fly
'Though you pass this way daily
...