In the ramshackle house where Jonathan lives alone,
At the head of the staircase there still is a children's gate,
Although the nursery-attic has never known
The light of children's laughter since 'seventy-eight—
The year of the fever, when John, Ralph and Nicholas died,
And their mother's heart with them; although she outlasted the year,
To sit like a stone, or to lie like a stone, at his side,
Till death shut her bleak eyes for ever to sorrow and fear:

And, though the old gate has been bolted for nigh fifty years,
He has seen it each day, as he climbed up the stair to his room;
And has often recalled how, over it, once his three dears
Would sing out a greeting to him from the stairhead's gloom …
And to-night, as he stumbles with faltering steps to his bed,
He is startled to see once again the three boys' faces there,
Peering over the gate—a flicker round each little head;
And he knows that he never again will travel that stair.