The City Dead-House by Walt Whitman

By the City Dead-House, by the gate, / As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangour, / I curious pause -- for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought; / Her corpse they deposit unclaimed, it lies on the damp brick pavement. / The divine woman, her body -- I see the body -- I look on it alone, / That house once full of passion and beauty -- all else I notice not; / Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odours morbific / impress me; / But the house alone -- that wondrous house -- that delicate fair house -- that ruin! / That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built, / Or white-domed Capitol itself, with majestic figure surmounted -- or all the / old high-spired cathedrals, / That little house alone, more than them all -- poor, desperate house! / Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a Soul! itself a Soul! / Unclaimed, avoided house! take one breath from my tremulous lips; / Take one tear, dropped aside as I go, for thought of you, / Dead house of love! house of madness and sin, crumbled! crushed! / House of life -- erewhile talking and laughing -- but ah, poor house! dead even then; / Months, years, an echoing, garnished house-but dead, dead, dead!