Read "A House with a History" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
THERE is a house in a city street / Some past ones made their own; / Its floors were criss-crossed by their feet, / And their babblings beat / From ceiling to white hearth-stone.
And who are peopling its parlours now? / Who talk across its floor? / Mere freshlings are they, blank of brow, / Who read not how / Its prime had passed before
Their raw equipments, scenes, and says / Afflicted its memoried face, / That had seen every larger phase / Of human ways / Before these filled the place.
To them that house's tale is theirs, / No former voices call / Aloud therein. Its aspect bears / Their joys and cares / Alone, from wall to wall.