Memory's Mansion

In Memory's Mansion are wonderful rooms, And I wander about them at will; And I pause at the casements, where boxes of blooms Are sending sweet scents o'er the sill. I lean from a window that looks on a lawn; From a turret that looks on the wave. But I draw down the shade when I see on some glade A stone standing guard by a grave. To Memory's attic I clambered one day When the roof was resounding with rain, And there, among relics long hidden away, I rummaged with heart ache and pain. A hope long surrendered and covered with dust, A pastime, out-grown and forgot, And a fragment of love all corroded with rust, Were lying heaped up in one spot. And there on the floor of that garret was tossed A friendship too fragile to last, With pieces of dearly bought pleasures that cost Vast fortunes of pain in the past, A fabric of passion, once vivid and bright, As the breast of a robin in Spring, Was spread out before me-a terrible sight- A moth-eaten rag of a thing. Then down the deep stairway I hurriedly went, And into fair chambers below; But the mansion seemed filled with the old attic scent Wherever my footsteps would go. Though in Memory's House I still wander full oft, No more to the garret I climb; And I leave all the rubbish heaped there in the loft To the hands of the Housekeeper, Time.