THE HOUSE OF LIFE

Quietly I closed the door.

Then I said to my soul:

“I shall never come back,

Back to this haunted room

Where Sorrow and I have slept.”

I turned from that hated door

And passed through the House of Life,

Through its ghostly rooms and glad

And its corridors dim with age.

Then lightly I crossed a threshold

Where the casements showed the sun

And I entered an unknown room,—

And my heart went cold,

For about me stood that Chamber of Pain

I had thought to see no more!