Shabby House’wall
Shabby house—wall
Of bricks once yellow,
Dingied with city grime,
Dusty and sallow,
The high sun, glorying
In clear gold, edges
Your crumbled mortar’s
Luminous ledges.
You glow with a touch
From the pure sky.
And suddenly all
Is new to the eye.
I see you as labour’s
Rough fruit and homely,
Raised morning by morning
To an order comely;
Labour of hands long dead,
Living, when all’s at rest,
After the dark has come
And the light gone West.
