The House With Nobody In It

Whenever I walk to Suffern, Along the Erie track, I go by a poor old farmhouse, With it's shingles broken and black. I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, But I always stop for a minute, To look at the house - the tragic house, The  house with nobody in it. I never have seen a haunted house, But I hear there are such things, That they hold the talk of spirits, Their mirth and sorrowings. I know this house isn't haunted, And I wish it were - I do, For it wouldn't be so lonely, If it had a ghost or two. This house on the road to Suffern, Needs a dozen panes of glass, And somebody ought to weed the walk, And take a scythe to the grass. It also needs new shingles, And the vines should be trimmed and tied, But what it needs the most of all, Is some people living inside. If I had a lot of money, And all my debts were paid, I'd put a gang of men to work, With brush and saw and spade. I'd buy that place and fix it up, The way it used to be, And find somebody who needed a home, And give it to them free. Now a new house standing empty, With staring window and door, Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, Like a hat on it's block in the store, But there's nothing mournful about it, It cannot be sad or lone For the lack of something within it, That it has never known. But a house that has done What a house should do, A house that has sheltered life, That has put its' loving wooden arms Around a man and his wife, A house that has echoed a baby's laugh And held up its' stumbling feet Is the saddest sight when it's left alone, That ever your eyes could meet. So whenever I walk to Suffern Along that Erie track, I never go by that lonely house Without stopping and looking back, Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling ruff, And the shutters fallen apart, For I can't help thinking that the poor old house Is a house with a broken heart.

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