Old Grey House

How many hands have touched your doors?
How many feet have walked your floors?
How many hearts are longing for this old grey house?

Old grey house down the road,

You have the saddest eyes I've ever seen,
And the wild morning-glories grow

On your shaded face where once you were green.
Sepia pictures on your walls
Long-ago secrets in your halls
Are still as the autumn leaves that fall

‘Round this old house.

Old grey house down the road,

You have the saddest eyes I've ever seen,
And they're wide open to the winds
That can take you travelling to where they've been.
Tattered white curtains flap and fly,
Waving to summer friends gone by.
I cannot pass but I feel and cry

For this old house. 

I remember we were dancing on the lawn –
We drank hot tea after midnight.

We were staying up till dawn –
There were stories by the firelight,

Warm friends on a winter's night
And swordfights with the icicles that clung

To this old house.

Old grey house down the road,

You have the saddest eyes that I've ever seen.
Now they're boarded up and blind
To the life that was and what might have been.
Old apple trees root deep in sod,
Reaching their naked arms to God.
Forgotten fruit will bud one day

‘Round this old house.

- Margie Carmichael

And My Name Is...Stories from the Quilt