The House with Nobody in it - Joyce Kilmer

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. 

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two. 

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside. 

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free. 

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known. 

But a house that has done what a house should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet. 

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

Ode on Solitude

Oh the sweet irony that is life..........

I. 

How happy he, who free from care 

The rage of courts, and noise of towns; 

Contented breathes his native air, 

In his own grounds. 

II. 

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, 

Whose flocks supply him with attire, 

Whose trees in summer yield him shade, 

In winter fire. 

III. 

Blest! who can unconcern'dly find 

Hours, days, and years slide swift away, 

In health of body, peace of mind, 

Quiet by day, 

IV. 

Sound sleep by night; study and ease 

Together mix'd; sweet recreation, 

And innocence, which most does please, 

With meditation. 

V. 

Thus let me live, unheard, unknown; 

Thus unlamented let me die; 

Steal from the world, and not a stone 

Tell where I lie.

Alexander Pope

...

“There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.”
- Herman Hesse

India

I drank in the warmth of his embrace.

The smouldering sun smiled upon us with all of its affection.

I drew in a long, deep breath- the gasp of one who has too long been deprived of her air.

The rich dust mingled with the dark smoke, with an inkling of the scent from a public toilet.

My feet caressed the searing gravel, that once was an obscure fact.

My ears witnessed a kaleidoscope of sounds- Oh! The sweetest that ever were heard; the brawling tramps, the rickety scooters, the constant vendor babble, the ceaseless honking.

I opened my eyes to a life no other peoples possessed.

He smiled, and a tear abandoned my eyelash.

I was home.