Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE GILMAN HOUSE, by EDWARD NOYES POMEROY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE GILMAN HOUSE, by                    
First Line: The meeting-house is but a dream
Last Line: The door that led to heaven.
Subject(s): Cemeteries; Death; Graves; Heaven; Graveyards; Dead, The; Tombs; Tombstones; Paradise


The meeting-house is but a dream:
It vanished like the snow
That arches the corroding stream
And mingles with its flow.

The graveyard, just across the way,
Across the way remains;
Its mould has fattened on decay
And losses are its gains.

Its rolling verdure rests the eye—
A sea with foamless waves;
And vanished generations lie
Beneath its billowy graves.

The parsonage is standing yet
With more than local fame;
A century's rains its roof have wet—
"The Gilman House" its name.

Here Parson Gilman honors scorned,
And here he multiplied;
And here he mourned, as Jacob mourned
When lovely Rachel died.

Why should I mention lesser names
The world has never heard?
Their piety the stars outflames—
These saints uncalendared.

As heaven is high and earth is round,
And vast the deep's abyss,
The circling sun has rarely found
A fairer scene than this.

The storied "ledge" climbs high behind,
The fields drop low before;
Beyond are islands silver-lined
Where warring waters pour.

Old manse, of kindred long bereft,
My life its limit nears;
Thy age is youth, to thee are left
Another hundred years.

Thy company are memories,
The ghosts that throng the night,
The warriors in phantom guise
That storm the rocky height.

For thee the red man lives once more;
He hunts for human game,
And frightened hamlets melt before
The tomahawk and flame.

But here the living come with me
To find where life was given,
And here the sainted dead to see
The door that led to Heaven.





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