The Poetry Corner

Memory's Mansion

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In Memory's Mansion are wonderful rooms, And I wander about them at will; And I pause at the casements, where boxes of blooms Are sending sweet scents o'er the sill. I lean from a window that looks on a lawn: From a turret that looks on the wave. But I draw down the shade, when I see on some glade, A stone standing guard, by a grave. To Memory's attic I clambered one day, When the roof was resounding with rain. And there, among relics long hidden away, I rummaged with heart-ache and pain. A hope long surrendered and covered with dust, A pastime, out-grown, and forgot, And a fragment of love, all corroded with rust, Were lying heaped up in one spot. And there on the floor of that garret was tossed A friendship too fragile to last, With pieces of dearly bought pleasures, that cost Vast fortunes of pain in the past. A fabric of passion, once ardent and bright, As tropical sunsets in spring, Was spread out before me - a terrible sight - A moth-eaten rag of a thing. Then down the steep stairway I hurriedly went, And into fair chambers below. But the mansion seemed filled with the old attic scent, Wherever my footsteps would go. Though in Memory's House I still wander full oft, No more to the garret I climb; And I leave all the rubbish heaped there in the loft To the hands of the Housekeeper, Time.