Excerpt from The Old Garden: And Other Verses Old gray house, whose broken case ments stare Like sad, dim eyes, at the retreating years, Once more I see thee, but forlorn and bare, And desolate of human hopes and fears. Sagging on rusty hinges hang thy doors, And in thy empty rooms no sound is heard Save only when upon the echoing floors Last autumn's drifted leaves are faintly stirred. Braiding the darkness of the wide, bare hall, The fiick'ring sunshine softly comes and goes, And 'gainst the broken plaster of the wall Is blown the shadow Of a climbing rose. Oh, none but Silence and the Past, to greet The weary heart that on the threshold stands, Only the wind to answer eager feet, And only shades to touch the outstretched hands! The house is but poor Love's neglected grave, While young and glad and bright with sum mer's glow. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.