Page 47 - Poetry-Family

A Moving Lay

There is a gloom upon our threshold
There’s a chill upon our hearth;
There is discord in the music;
There is mocking in the mirth.
Peace has folded up her pinions,
And has packed them safe away;
‘Tis that direst “Dies Irae”—
‘Tis, alas, a moving day!

Ruin stalks around us rampant,
Chaos claims us as his own;
Wreck and fragment strew the altar
Where domestic love had throne.
Dark-browed demons, horny-handed,
Snatch, and fling, and bear away
All we hoarded, prized and treasured.
Loot and pillage reign today!
Here the old arm-chair, held sacred
To a presence passed away,
Loaded down with pots and kettles,
Keeps the kitchen stove at bay.
Here the dainty, curtained cradle,
Where wee Nellie fell asleep,
With the scuttle, tubs and coal-box,
Is flung forward in a heap.

Here a satin damask sofa
Groans beneath the kitchen chairs;
Here my costly Paris bronzes
And the iron pots in pairs;
Here the rich mosaic table—
All declared so recherché—
Moves off, with a rusty boiler
In a most communistic way.
Hark! Was that the parlor mirror?
No; my book-case gone to smash,
Wrecking all my choice engravings
In one universal crash.
I possess my soul in patience,
In a ghastly, hopeless way.

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