Two versions of one of his early success, the much-anthologized villanelle, "The House on the Hill," show him groping toward the characteristic style of his maturity, distinguished (though the advance is slight and uncertain in this instance) by a more concentrated specification of feeling and, coincidentally, a provocative obliquity of statement The first version, written out in a letter of February, 1894, antedates the second and published version by more than two years:
They are all gone away, The house is shut and still: There is nothing more to say.
Malign them as we may, We cannot do them ill: They are all gone away.
Are we more fit than they To meet the Master's will?-- There is nothing more to say.
What matters it who stray Around the sunken sill?-- They are all gone away,
And our poor fancy-play For them is wasted skill: There is nothing more to say.
There is ruin and decay In the House on the Hill: They are all gone away, There is nothing more to say.
II
They are all gone away, The House is shut and still, There is nothing more to say.
Through broken walls and gray The winds blow bleak and shrill: They are all gone away.
Nor is there one to-day To speak them good or ill: There is nothing more to say.
Why is it then we stray Around that sunken sill? They are all gone away.
And our poor fancy-play For them is wasted skill: There is nothing more to say.
There is ruin and decay In the House on the Hill: They are all gone away, There is nothing more to say.