Shabby House—Wall

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Shabby house--wall
Of bricks once yellow,
Dingied with city grime,
Dusty and sallow,

The high sun, glorying
In clear gold, edges
Your crumbled mortar's
Luminous ledges.

You glow with a touch
From the pure sky.
And suddenly all
Is new to the eye.

I see you as labour's
Rough fruit and homely,
Raised morning by morning
To an order comely;

Labour of hands long dead,
Living, when all's at rest,
After the dark has come
And the light gone West.

© Robert Laurence Binyon