| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | The Farm on the Links | | By Rosamund Marriott Watson (1860–1911) |
| | | GREY o’er the pallid links, haggard and forsaken, | |
| Still the old roof-tree hangs rotting overhead, | |
| Still the black windows stare sullenly to seaward, | |
| Still the blank doorway gapes, open to the dead. | |
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| What is it cries with the crying of the curlews? | 5 |
| What comes apace on those fearful, stealthy feet, | |
| Back from the chill sea-deeps, gliding o’er the sand-dunes, | |
| Home to the old home, once again to meet? | |
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| What is to say as they gather round the hearth-stone, | |
| Flameless and dull as the feuds and fears of old? | 10 |
| Laughing and fleering still, menacing and mocking, | |
| Sadder than death itself, harsher than the cold. | |
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| Woe for the ruin’d hearth, black with dule and evil, | |
| Woe for the wrong and the hate too deep to die! | |
| Woe for the deeds of the dreary days past over, | 15 |
| Woe for the grief of the gloomy days gone by! | |
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| Where do they come from? furtive and despairing, | |
| Where are they bound for? those that gather there, | |
| Slow, with the sea-wind sobbing through the chambers, | |
| Soft, with the salt mist stealing up the stair? | 20 |
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| Names that are nameless now, names of dread and loathing, | |
| Bann’d and forbidden yet, dark with spot and stain: | |
| Only the old house watches and remembers, | |
| Only the old home welcomes them again. | | | | |
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