The Old House

by Glen Hague
(Lisbon, Portugal)

The old clock ticks the time away
In the room grey with age,
Heavy with the shadows of another time
That somehow still remain.
Memories reach out eager fingers
To be relived again.
Echoes of another time,
So different, yet the same.

Outside the wind, and the snow is falling
On the path where strangers tread,
In here the whispering of noisy ghosts,
The madness of the dead.
A sigh of sadness in the gloom
That mingles with the chime,
And life seems but a hopeful dream,
To sleep, perchance to die?

Dance, dance, dance my pretty children,
Make your grand dame smile,
Dance , dance, dance in the fire
That gives us life for a while.
We who are locked within the walls,
Crying in the corridors and empty halls,
We can live when the fire is lit
In the shadows on the walls.