Still Tenanted

OLD house, how desolate thy life!
Nay, life and death alike have fled;
Nor thrift, nor any song within,
Nor daily thought for daily bread.

The dew is nightly on thy hearth,
Yet something sweeter to thee clings,
And some who enter think they hear
The murmur of departing wings.

No doubt within the chambers there, —
Not by the wall nor through the gate, —
Uncounted tenants come, to whom
The house is not so desolate.

To them the walls are white and warm,
The chimneys lure the laughing flame,
The bride and groom take happy hands,
The new-born babe awaits a name.

Who knows what far-off journeyers
At night return with winged feet,
To cool their fever in the brook,
Or haunt the meadow, clover-sweet?

And yet the morning mowers find
No foot-print in the grass they mow,
The water’s clear, unwritten song
Is not of things that come or go.

’T is not forsaken rooms alone
That unseen people love to tread,
Nor in the moments only when
The day’s eluded cares are dead.

To every home, or high or low,
Some unimagined guests repair,
Who come unseen to break and bless
The bread and oil they never share.