Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)
The House on the Hill
1They are all gone away,
2 The House is shut and still,
3There is nothing more to say.
4Through broken walls and gray
5 The winds blow bleak and shrill:
6They are all gone away.
7Nor is there one to-day
8 To speak them good or ill:
9There is nothing more to say.
10Why is it then we stray
11 Around the sunken sill?
12They are all gone away,
13And our poor fancy-play
14 For them is wasted skill:
15There is nothing more to say.
16There is ruin and decay
17 In the House on the Hill:
18They are all gone away,
19There is nothing more to say.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Collected Poems, with an introduction by John Drinkwater (London: Cecil Palmer, 1922): 81-82. PS 3535 O25A17 1922 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
September
1894
Publication date note: The Globe (Sept. 1894): 828.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/3
Form: villanelle
Other poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson
