Well Built, This House

Well Built, This House

8-25-13

DGW

Well built, this house antebellum. 

Garden paths of oyster shell, dumb 

Cypress columns, a belvedere?

William B. Gould's plaster still there, 

Rain cowering in the well. Plumb  

And level all. Yet the fell sum,

The cost, the smell of the vellum 

Ledger, the leer of the cashier. 

Well built, this house.

William B. Gould, he could spell some,

But he didn't write "farewell!" Come

The morning, he'd rowed past Cape Fear.

If that suggests there's rot somewhere,

Owner's gone, and none to tell him. 

Well built, this house.