For Sale

Four hundred years this little house has stood

Through wind and fire, through earthquake

  and  through flood;

Still its old beams, through bulged and warped,

Are strong,

In spite of gaping wounds both deep and long.

The doors are low and give such narrow space

We must walk humbly in this place.

The windows here, no longer square or straight,

Are able now, from fantastic state,

To squint down their own walls, and see the flowers

That get more drippings from the eaves than showers.

Six hundred pounds for this precious stone!

These little, quaint old windows squinting down;

This orchard, with its apples' last appeal

To dumping or sweet cider; this deep well,

Whose little eye has sparkled from its birth-

Four hundred years in sixty feet of earth!