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Hope and Love have gone away

Closing every window-blind,

Locking every door behind,

Bearing off the key.

Tenantless the musty house

Throws on passers-by its gloom;

Nor in any haunted room

Dares a living mouse.

Old and mouldy there it stands

All mysterious and lone

With its mosses overgrown—

Ruin’s myriad hands.

Useless grow the choking weeds

While the winding eglantine

And the morning-glory vine

Scatter wild their seeds.

Times there are when winds, hard pressed,

Gibber at the ghosts within,

Hollow-voiced with staring grin,

Uninvited guests.

Rumor, waking night and day,

Sees strange sights through window-panes,

Hears weird sounds of clanking chains

Sounding far away.

Rumor tells that Hope and Love

Walk the ghosts of murdered selves

When the midnight hour twelves:

Empty rooms they rove.

But malicious town-folk say

Hope and Love are not away

But art hiding day by day:

Murderers are they!

But alas! I would ’twere so!—

Would that Hope and Love each might,

Might return e’en tho’ at night,

Tho’ at morn they go!

For Despair and Hate hide there,

Quiet thro’ the daytime quite,

Ghosting sights and sounds by night,

Demons of the air.

Counterfeiters both are they,

Coining only after night,

Minting metal ghostly white,

Holding revelry.

Aye, ’tis haunted! Hate is wed,

Wedded to his mate Despair,

And they hold high revels there:

Hope and Love are dead!

Good my friends, remove the pile,

Ere it fall to foul decay;

Hope and Love have gone away,

Ruin feeds the while.

Hope and Love have gone away,

Closing door and closing blind,

Leaving Ruin lone behind,

Bearing off the key.