Musings On A Ruined House Near Old Mystic Poem by John Bliven Morin

Along a long-forgotten deep-rutted road
Long-lined with courtly maples, clothed
In a Joseph’s Coat of Autumn leaves,
By the rambling shambles of a gray stone wall
I found a crumbling cabin-shell, a half-house,
Left standing empty and abandoned.

Through a warm window by an honest wall
The mottled shadows kitten-played upon the floor.

Here a stern New England father sat,
Bible-thumping of Sin and dire Perdition
And thanked his God for back-breaking toil;
Here a farm-wife stood, work-worn and weary
With chores and children living and early-dead.

Through this shattered door once passed sons
To ship and sea and never seen again;
Here a comely daughter sat, destined to die in distant lands,
Dreaming of her shy, solemn seminary lad.

A nearby field revealed the graves of all the rest,
While taller than those stones, the last remaining walls
And stark chimney stand, a silent epitaph for them all.