The House Beautiful
A naked house, a naked moor,
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
A shivering pool before the door,
A garden bare of flowers and fruit,
And poplars at the garden foot;
Such is the place that I live in,
Bleak without and bare within.
Yet shall your ragged moors receive
The incomparable pomp of eve,
And the cold glories of the dawn
Behind your shivering trees be drawn;
And when the wind from place to place
Doth the unmoored cloud galleons chase,
Your garden blooms and gleams again
With leaping sun and glancing rain;
Here shall the wizard moon ascend
The heavens, in the crimson end
Of day’s declining splendor; here,
The army of the stars appear.
The neighbor hollows, dry or wet,
Spring shall with tender flowers beset;
And oft the morning muser see
Larks rising from the broomy lea,
And every fairy wheel and thread
Of cobweb dew dediamonded.
When daisies go, shall winter time
Silver the simple grass with rime;
Autumnal frosts enchant the pool
And make the cart ruts beautiful.
And when snow bright the moor expands,
How shall your children clap their hands!
To make this earth our heritage,
A cheerful and a changeful page,
God’s intricate and bright device
Of days and seasons doth suffice.