The House Builder

The House Builder written by William Henry Davies

From "Farewell to Poesy", 1910

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The Rain has lost more music keys,
One harp the less for Summer’s Breeze;
The Sheep have lost one of their shades,
The Cows one place to rub their sides;
The crash has come, the Oak lies now,
With all its ruined branches, low.
And I am filled with angry pain;
But if I speak, it were as vain
As though a butterfly, poor fool,
Should try to move a stuggy bull!
Where this Oak stood a house must be,
Not half so fair as a green tree;
The crash that made my last hope fall,
Was music to that builder’s soul.
No beauty in the bark he sees,
Nor leaves; the boughs and trunks of trees
Shape into planks before his eyes,
To build a house that he will prize.
He’d rather sit inside walls four,
With plaster roof and wooden floor,
Than under a green tree and hear,
As I have done, the birds’ notes clear
Among the leaves in Summer. Yet,
What is this life, if we forget
To fill our ears when Nature sings,
Our eyes search for her lovely things?
Of which she keeps a wondrous store,
And charges us our love, no more.

This work is in the public domain in countries where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less.