Explore "The First Guest" by Helen Gray Cone on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When the house is finished, Death enters. / _Eastern Proverb._
Life's House being ready all, / Each chamber fair and dumb, / Ere Life, the Lord, is come / With pomp into his hall, -- / Ere Toil has trod the floors, / Ere Love has lit the fires, / Or young great-eyed Desires / Have, timid, tried the doors; / Or from east-window leaned / One Hope, to greet the sun, / Or one gray Sorrow screened / Her sight against the west, -- / Then enters the first guest, / The House of Life being done.