Ode to an Old House


There it stands in the empty paddock,
Now all alone and forlorn
No longer glass in the windows.
No longer gardens or lawn.


The roof is lifting and rusty,
No paint on the walls to be seen.
Once a proud family home in the country.
Now a derelict. Just a has-been.


A sad looking picture. I feel
For that broken down building out there.
Where’s the family who once occupied it?
Who were they, I wonder, and where?


Did they leave all at once in a hurry?
Or all drift off one at a time?
Were they happy or sad? Were they good folk or bad?
When they left was there reason or rhyme?


Yet I feel some warmth for that lonely old house
As it stands on its own way out there.
In its tumbledown state it can only wait
For collapse. Would anyone care?


I do. I wish I had taken a photo
Of the old decayed building out there.
For I feel sad for the house which was once
A glad home of a family there. ©


Posted by Dave