{
 "id": "george-macdonald/a-dead-house",
 "title": "A Dead House",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "George MacDonald",
 "poet_slug": "george-macdonald",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Volume II",
 "book_slug": "poetical-works-vol-2",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 25,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1893,
  "venue": "The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Volume II (1893)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1893 collected Poetical Works, which is the printing this text is and not the poem's first appearance. MacDonald gathered and revised for it work published from 1855 onward, and it arranges the poems by its own editorial grouping rather than by the volumes they came from, so which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksge00macdgoog",
   "https://archive.org/metadata/poeticalworksge00macdgoog",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9984"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/george-macdonald_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1953",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8949",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9543",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9984",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10578",
   "https://archive.org/details/bookofstrifeinfo00macd",
   "https://archive.org/details/discipleandothe02macdgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/discipleandothe02macdgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/rampolli00macd",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102955776",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011821572"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When the clock hath ceased to tick",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soul-like in the gloomy hall;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When the latch no more doth click",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tongue-like in the red peach-wall;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When no more come sounds of play,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mice nor children romping roam,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then looks down the eye of day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On a dead house, not a home!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But when, like an old sun’s ghost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Haunts her vault the spectral moon;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When earth’s margins all are lost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Melting shapes nigh merged in swoon,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then a sound⁠—hark! there again!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No, ’tis not a nibbling mouse!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis a ghost, unseen of men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Walking through the bare-floored house!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And with lightning on the stair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To that silent upper room,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With the thunder-shaken air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sudden gleaming into gloom,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With a frost-wind whistling round,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the raging northern coasts,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then, mid sieging light and sound,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the house is live with ghosts!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Brother, is thy soul a cell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Empty save of glittering motes,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where no live loves live and dwell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only notions, things, and thoughts?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then thou wilt, when comes a Breath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tempest-shaking ridge and post,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Find thyself alone with Death",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a house where walks no ghost.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}