Ambition, and Other Poems/For Sale

by William Henry Davies

For Sale

Four hundred years this little house has stoodThrough wind and fire, through earthquake and through flood;Still its old beams, though bulged and warped, are strong,In spite of gaping wounds both deep and long.The doors are low and give such narrow spaceWe must walk humbly in this little place.The windows here, no longer square or straight,Are able now, from their fantastic state,To squint down their own walls, and see the flowersThat get more drippings from the eaves than showers.Six hundred pounds for all this precious stone!These little, quaint old windows squinting down;This orchard, with its apples' last appealTo dumpling or sweet cider; this deep well,Whose little eye has sparkled from its birth—Four hundred years in sixty feet of earth!