And makes no answer: man and mouse
Long since forsook it, and decay
Chokes its deep heart with ashes gray.

On what was once a garden-ground
Dull red-bloomed sorrels now abound;
And boldly whistles the shy quail
Within the vacant pasture's pale.

Ah, strange and savage, where he shines,
The sun seems staring through those pines
That once the vanished home could bless
With intimate, sweet loneliness.

The ignorant, elastic sod
The feet of them that daily trod
Its roods hath utterly forgot:
The very fire-place knows them not.

For, in the weedy cellar, thick
The ruined chimney's mass of brick
Lies strown. Wide heaven, with such an ease
Dost thou, too, lose the thought of these?

Yet I, although I know not who
Lived here, in years that voiceless grew
Ere I was born,--and never can,--
Am moved, because I am a man.

Oh glorious gift of brotherhood!