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.
“The House With Nobody In It” by Joyce Kilmer
Every Wednesday night I take a tour of Martins Creek when I ride the church van to pick up kids for our children’s program. I never drive.
Riding in the passenger seat gives me an opportunity to study the houses along the roads we travel. I’m saddened and sort of amazed by the deserted houses along the route. I can remember when many of the homes were inhabited by people.
My recent trip to Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest had many folks talking about his famous poem about trees. The poem is on a placard at the entrance to the hiking trails. Granny could recite “Trees” so any time I hear or see it mentioned I think of her.
I like the poem too, but not as much as I like “The House With Nobody In It.”
It seems like a house that sits empty, void of the hub-hub of life, deteriorates fast. Might be because of the lack of air flow or because there’s no one there to care for leaks and other issues, but I’ve always thought the down hill slide is directly related to the absence of people. Joyce Kilmer describes empty decaying houses very well.
Last night’s video: The Last Plantings this Summer.
Tipper
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This is sorta of a reply to Sadie and maybe something others haven’t thought about. My friend I mentioned that has his own home building business first made me think about. When I married I had thought about trying to rebuild /restore my Grandparents home and had talked to him about it. Buying an old home and having to pay someone to fix or remodel it will cost a lot more ( nearly twice) than just building new. The reason -you are not only paying the cost to build or rebuild something new but you also have to add in the cost of paying someone to tear out the old. This does not apply if you can do the work yourself. We think someone broke into my Grandparents home and tried to steal some things and then set it on fire to try and cover their tracks but I still wish I could have restored it before this happened.
Old houses have always called me. So much so that I bought an old farmhouse in Middle Tennessee in 1997 that was in dire need of new life. It had only one overhead light and one outlet in each room and, unbeknownst to me, an old fruit cellar as its septic tank! That’s another story. After five years of pouring my time, energy, money, and love into the old home place, I moved back to North Carolina, but the old place and the memories I made there stayed with me. One of the most interesting is the fact that before I started renovating the house, I got word that Hollywood was looking for a place like mine for an “un-named” major motion picture. Long story short, they chose my house to serve as the outside of Paul’s (Tom Hanks) house in “The Green Mile.” Fast forward 20+ years and someone has made renovations that have more than quadrupled the market value of the house. More importantly, their continued outpouring of TLC has turned a “House With Nobody In It” into a happy home!
I like this poem. I also enjoy reading Robert Frost poems. God bless
I had never encountered that poem by Joyce Kilmer. I recognize the melancholy feeling that runs through it. Live long enough and we each get a share of memories and images of what was but is no more. I’m partial to the old houses, those built before I was born. I look at a lot of real estate listings and the craftsmanship and detail in those 1920s and 1930s houses is impressive.
Those empty houses always make me so sad. To think that one day years ago someone was so happy to have a new home and hopefully fill it with a family and so many memories. Then to see it abandoned and uncared for just breaks my heart. Thank you so much for this post.
I used to walk two blocks to school. On the way, there was a beautiful house that sat empty. Being a child I was curious about why no one lived there. Sometimes I’d be brave enough to peek in the window on the porch. I couldn’t really see anything but I was scared enough that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I got myself right to school and never went on that porch again. I wish I could know that house’s story but it was taken in the 1974 tornado that hit Xenia, just like my own.
I always felt the same way about the little house I grew up in. We rented it from an older couple next door. I can remember every inch of it—a bright kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, no bathroom, no running water—a hand pump in the kitchen that gave us the most delicious, cold well water all year long. It wasn’t fancy, but Mama kept it clean and filled with good smells of baking bread, fresh laundry, and lots of love. My parents finally built a new home on a four acre piece of land that we had owned for a long time. This was after my sister and I had grown and had homes of our own. So, even though I loved their new house and Mama loved finally having an inside bathroom, the little green house was my home place. As the years went by, it was never rented again. It started falling down slowly but surely. We would stop by and peek in the windows and remember. Weeds grew up through the floor of the front porch that I sat on many hours—drawing pictures—holding hands with my future hubby—just hanging out with my family. One day several years later, it caught fire and burned to the ground. There is still a sad pile of rubble there with grass growing tall and my Mama’s snowball bush still blooming in the backyard.
What a beautiful, haunting poem. Growing up, there was a house on a corner where we made the one turn in our 7 mile trip home from town. It had once been a nice, 2 story farmhouse, but that was long before my 4 year old eyes landed on it. There were a few broken window panes and a sagging front porch but I could always see what once was, a home with people inside its walls. There was a dilapidated barn out back. I could see the cows who used to come to that barn, twice a day, for milking. I used to ask my mom relentlessly why it was empty. The whole farm, as if one day, the people just walked away. In Jr high, as I’d ride by it in that big yellow school bus, I’d tell my friend how I thought it could be fixed up. I got her on my “dream team”. Sadly, by high school I had too many activities and friends to keep me busy and not long after I married and moved where I didn’t see the old house every day. Many years later, when taking a ride by the house I lived in from 4-19 years old, I saw the old house had finally succumbed to the years of neglect and a farmer had raised it in order to add that small corner of ground to his field. I couldn’t save it but I so wish someone would have seen it through my eyes and brought it back to life to love another family. I refer to my home as my grand old girl. She’s a modest bungalow who is celebrating her 100th birthday this year. I’ve spent 33 years loving her and been reciprocated with a safe spot to land and “arms” that have welcomed my 3 grandkids and now a great granddaughter. I hope whoever lives in her after I’m gone, sees her potential and not just the beautiful ground she sets on as a spot to build a new home♡
I would love to see the inside of that old house. I spy a horseshoe above the front door. Thanks for sharing.
That was beautiful! Perfectly expressing that very real feeling of sadness seeing an abandoned house. On my to do list today is read more Joyce Kilmer poems! ❤️
I never appreciated the poem Trees when I was in school. I had a stern teacher, who would make us recite it. I guess I was scared or bashful that when I recited it, I would make a mistake, and the other kids would laugh at me. That never happened, but yet that poem stuck in my mind all these years most of it today I can still recite. Now I look at it in a different light. It is a beautiful poem about how God adores his creation for man to enjoy. Well, our tomatoes are coming in enough for me to start my first run. I love tomatoes and usually can several cans of them in the summer, but since it is just Lucky and I I don’t can very many now. We have had green beans, cucumbers, okra, and our yellow squash has came in and pretty much gone. Sometime this week I am hoping to make jelly out of our lemon blueberries. I have already made a huge dish pan of vegetable soup and have canned it for the winner. I was not planning on canning very much this year, but it seems like I just can’t stop canning when things come in. What started me down this road of Canning this year was making different things for my nephew for Christmas and boxing it up and then I got a email wanting me to sell my niece some jars from her husband which, of course I am not going to charge them for then I put a picture of some of my canning on Facebook just to say that I had some jars for sale if anybody was interested in and a girl PM me back and wanted to buy my canned food. I thought that was so sweet but like you, we eat our food give some to our family and I am not interested in selling anything. God bless everyone and I hope you have a great day.
Two of the saddest things to me are deserted old houses and neglected cemeteries. Seeing either one breaks my heart.
I just loved that poem! It spoke to my heart and put words where an empty or forlorn feeling may have been when I too pass an abandoned house fallen into disrepair. I often think of the people and wonder about all the living and loving in that place that once was. It’s akin to the feeling when I pass an empty lot with daffodils, rose bushes or peonies near the road where surely a driveway must have been or a lady who admired flowers once called such a empty lot home and raised her babies there with her husband. Then I think of all the young people especially with no home and wonder why they couldn’t have a place they could work on slowly and fix up. At least that’s the dream in the heart of this old woman who was once young and had many aspirations and a romantic ignorant view of this cold world. Now I pray and hold on for I know what can be shaken will be shaken. You ain’t begun to see nuthin’ yet…. That’s the word I’ve received over and over again. If HE reveals it-it will come for all to see. Have a blessed day as we give all to our Lord and savior.
I pass by several abandoned homes when I drive the 32 miles to pick up my youngest grandson to spend the weekend with me every two weeks. I remember when some of these homes had families living in them and now they have been abandoned and are going to waste, it seems to me no one no longer cares about these homes. I do find myself wishing I had a home like some of them instead of this doublewide mobile home. I don’t feel like there is anything wrong with living in a mobile home, it keeps me safe, warm and dry, allowed me to raise my family in it and my wife to stay at home and raise our children when they were young and not have to be put in daycare. I have a friend that owns his own business building homes, he will talk about so many people now being “house poor” it takes every penny they can make to try and pay for the big homes they live in.
Randy, I agree with you. It’s all about perspective and yours is very sensible. Your home does- and has done in the past- exactly what it’s supposed to do. And a home that allowed a mom to stay home with her kids is a home to be appreciated for what it is, without dwelling on what it’s not. I have watched huge houses being built where more modest ones were destroyed by our 2020 tornado and wonder why in the world someone needs so much room? 3 and 4 garages! I keep hoping they are lived in by huge families, hopefully with extended families- multi generational families. But I doubt that’s the case. And I think how glad I am that I don’t have a house that size to keep clean.