| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Music | | By Helen Louise Birch |
| | From “Autumn Leaves”
THE HOUSE is still. | |
| The very pictures on the walls have lost their painted meaning. | |
| The place seems new and strangely vacant. | |
| I see the old brown Chinese figure in the panel facing me; he has a look of stupid blankness that is utterly new. | |
| The three big dogs asleep here at my feet— | 5 |
| What cabalistic word will be required to rouse them from their almost deathlike slumbers? | |
| So still—so still the house— | |
| My heart so still. | |
| And I might lift my head and speak and move about and change all this, | |
| But that I know what thing has made it so; | 10 |
| Whose absence the place can feel, | |
| Whose voice is heard no more. | |
| And I think of the great free-sounding melodies that filled the room— | |
| Great silhouettes that passed— | |
| And clear full living tones that live no longer. | 15 |
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| This is the lifeless vacuum left by the passage of the storm. | | | | |
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