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Joyce Kilmer - The House with Nobody in It

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for 
a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in 
it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there 
are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen 
panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed 
and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.
If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window 
and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the 
store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling 
feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes 
could meet.
So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen 
apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken 
heart.

Added: on April 13th, 2006 at 10:31 PM | Viewed: 5833 times | Comments and analysis of The House with Nobody in It by Joyce Kilmer Comments (20)


The House with Nobody in It - Comments and Information

Poet: Joyce Kilmer
Poem: 28. The House with Nobody in It
Volume: Trees and Other Poems
Year: Published/Written in 1914

Comment 20 of 20, added on April 25th, 2007 at 9:49 AM.

MY MOM(NELLIE RAY)RECITED THIS POEM AS A YOUNG GIRL IN
SCHOOL IN NEEDVILLE,TX. SHE WON THE CONTEST. I HEARD HER RECITE THIS POEM IN HER LATE 70'S AND SHE REMEMBERED IT ALL. SHE PASSED AWAY IN MAY"05, AND THE HOME SHE LIVED IN, NOW HAS NOBODY IN IT. I WISH I HAD RECITED THIS POEM AT HER FUNERAL BECAUSE SHE LOVED IT!!!!

CATHERINE DAVIS from United States
Comment 19 of 20, added on January 5th, 2007 at 7:37 PM.

I used to recite in plays and contests in school and this is one of my prize poems. I've always loved it and include this in poems I give as gifts. It's so sad to think of this house that did it's job and now is alone and so true to life, Isn't it?

alice dailey from United States
Comment 18 of 20, added on April 13th, 2006 at 10:31 PM.

I heard this poem for the very first time last night. It was recited by a woman who is 87 years old. My grandparents lived in Suffern, and as a child we would walk the country roads after dinner in the summer,
when the light was long and lingered. We would cross a wooden bridge that spanned that Erie track and there was, indeed, an old abandoned farm house that we kids would call 'haunted'....I wonder if it was the same house.......


Vivian Clayton from United States

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