In the House only sound
A few notes of Chopin in the night
Voices echo and drift in old walls
Imprisoned perhaps for centuries
A dog whines from the attic
The sound wavering, plaintive
Water’s still running in the old pantry
A skipping rope thumps insistently
High above on the nursery floor
Tennis balls thud on ghostly racquets
In tournaments long forgotten
In the kitchen bells summon
Maids to empty rooms
Footsteps sound in the hall
Never arrive at the door
Cricket bats boys have left
For Waterloo, the Somme, Burma
‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’
They’ll not return at all.