A hall; a tall foreboding house of stone:
Set upon the lonely, stretching snow,
And there, by its rusty iron gate, I stood
With a tall, strange friend I did not know

“Come,” he spoke, and went on, through the gate;
I followed him, past quiet trees which stood
Like long dead sentries, menacing the path,
With blackened leaves and limbs of rotten wood

The door was large, and heavy, rough-hewn oak,
And beckoned us, with haste, to go away;
But still we made a cautious entrance there,
And I, with silent wonder heard him say:

“What you see is what you could have been:
It was, if I remember, offered long ago
Some place now veiled behind the mists of time;
And why you didn’t, I will never know.”

Inside were tables piled high with food,
And many goblets glistening with wine
But looking on, I only saw one chair
Of gilded gold, a lonely place to dine

The walls were made of cold and polished marble;
The ceilings carved with alabaster stone,
Inlayed with gold and jewels and precious diamonds
Which shone brilliantly, and glistened, all alone

Large tapestries were hung across the great hall,
Each one to point the passing of a year;
All pictured scenes of wealth and silent treasures,
Though the older ones were faded and unclear

I looked with raptured silence
Through the many rooms and lofty-covered halls
And to a dreary garden,
With bare-limbed trees and frosty, high stone walls

And there we found a grave for
A lonely man whose death was long ago;
“Here lies he who triumphed,
Now dead,” was the inscription on the stone