Upstairs might they venture, in dirt and in gloom,
To peep at the door of the wonderful room
Such stories are told about, none of them true!—­
The keyhole itself has no mortal seen through.

That room,—­forty years since, folk settled and decked it. 
The luncheon’s prepared, and the guests are expected,
The handsome young host he is gallant and gay,
For his love and her friends will be with him today.

With solid and dainty the table is drest,
The wine beams its brightest, the flowers bloom their best;
Yet the host need not smile, and no guests will appear,
For his sweetheart is dead, as he shortly shall hear.

Full forty years since turned the key in that door. 
’T is a room deaf and dumb mid the city’s uproar. 
The guests, for whose joyance that table was spread,
May now enter as ghosts, for they’re every one dead.

Through a chink in the shutter dim lights come and go;
The seats are in order, the dishes a-row: 
But the luncheon was wealth to the rat and the mouse
Whose descendants have long left the Dirty Old House.

Cup and platter are masked in thick layers of dust;
The flowers fallen to powder, the wine swathed in crust;
A nosegay was laid before one special chair,
And the faded blue ribbon that bound it lies there.

The old man has played out his part in the scene. 
Wherever he now is, I hope he’s more clean. 
Yet give we a thought free of scoffing or ban
To that Dirty Old House and that Dirty Old Man.

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

HOME, WOUNDED.

Wheel me into the sunshine,
Wheel me into the shadow. 
There must be leaves on the woodbine,
Is the kingcup crowned in the meadow?

Wheel me down to the meadow,
Down to the little river,
In sun or in shadow
I shall not dazzle or shiver,
I shall be happy anywhere,
Every breath of the morning air
Makes me throb and quiver.

Stay wherever you will,
By the mount or under the hill,
Or down by the little river: 
Stay as long as you please,
Give me only a bud from the trees,
Or a blade of grass in morning dew,
Or a cloudy violet clearing to blue,
I could look on it forever.

Wheel, wheel through the sunshine,
Wheel, wheel through the shadow;
There must be odors round the pine,
There must be balm of breathing kine,
Somewhere down in the meadow. 
Must I choose?  Then anchor me there
Beyond the beckoning poplars, where
The larch is snooding her flowery hair
With wreaths of morning shadow.