Only a common room,

Old, carpetless, and bare!

Only a poor old home!

A poor old woman there!

She sits with her eyes downcast,

And thinks of the bygone years;

Looks at the treasures gathered there

When her heart held hopes and fears.

Hopes that lived but to die,

Like the sweet one that gave them birth;

Fears which changed to despair,

When she sat by her lonely hearth.

Despair is now dulled by time,

But it quickens and lives again,

As she opens the old bureau

To see treasures that still remain.

Only a broken toy—

An old mis-shapen thing!

Yet endowed with cruel strength

To inflict a sharp heart-sting.

A few old withered flowers

Have fallen to the floor,—

Where, where are the little hands

That gathered them long before?

Oh terrible, cruel power!

That lies in inanimate things,

To open the old deep wounds

Time had touched with his healing wings.