The Old Rectory

They are going to pull down the old rectory next year, So I hear, And put up an ugly little red Brick one instead . . . Which, of course, as you say, Is the sensible thing to do, Since who Wants those great rambling places to-day . . . That great drawing-room with the tall Gracious windows that let in the sun and show all The worn bits on the carpet and chairs . . . The stairs With the slender Queen Anne balustrades, And the bedrooms - how many? Nine, I suppose, Not counting nurseries - and the schoolroom whose paper still shows Where the tinkling old Broadwood Once stood And was practiced on year after year by girls In crinolines, ringlets and curls; Then the kitchens, immense, beetle-haunted and bleak, And the vast yawning range that would swallow Your coal for a year in a week . . . The stabling, too, built long ago by some parson Or squarson Whose delight was to follow The hounds every day (except Sunday, of course, When he preached two dull sermons perforce) . . . And all on four hundred a year, And no maids . . . So the days will go by, and the lawn will be knee-deep in grass, Where you scatter the seeds Of the weeds As you pass On the borders once fragrant with flowers . . . And the warm sunny hours Bring no laughter, no flutter of muslins, no cries of 'Oh. Oh, You pig - just look - he's sent me to Jericho!' And the mallets are broken and rotten, And the balls all lost and forgotten . . . Ah well! . . . Yes, as you say, No one wants these great places to-day . . .