Collected poems, 1901-1918/Alone

by Walter De la Mare

ALONE

A VERY old woman
Lives in yon house.
The squeak of the cricket,
The stir of the mouse,
Are all she knows
Of the earth and us.

Once she was young,
Would dance and play,
Like many another
Young popinjay;
And run to her mother
At dusk of day.

And colours bright
She delighted in;
The fiddle to hear.
And to lift her chin,
And sing as small
As a twittering wren.

But age apace
Comes at last to all;

And a lone house filled
With the cricket's call;
And the scampering mouse
In the hollow wall.