Introduction: “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer
“The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer first appeared in the early 20th century, though it was not part of a specifically titled collection and is often associated with Kilmer’s broader body of sentimental poetry. The poem centers on an abandoned farmhouse the speaker frequently passes near Suffern along the Erie track. Kilmer reflects on the loneliness and quiet sorrow of a house that once sheltered life but now stands empty and decaying. He contrasts this with a new, uninhabited house, which lacks the same sadness because it has never known life. The poem’s main ideas revolve around memory, loss, and the emotional imprint people leave on places. Its enduring popularity comes from Kilmer’s heartfelt language and personification of the house, particularly in lines like “a house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet,” which evoke deep feelings of nostalgia and empathy. By giving the house human emotions, Kilmer invites readers to reflect on the quiet tragedies of forgotten homes and the lives they once embraced.
Text: “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer
Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn’t haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn’t be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.
If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I’d put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I’d buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I’d find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there’s nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it’s left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.
So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can’t help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.
Annotations: “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer
| Stanza | Annotation (Simple English) | Literary Devices |
| 1 | The speaker often walks past an old, broken house and always stops to look at it because it feels very sad and empty. | 🏠 Repetition (“the house, the tragic house”)🎭 Personification (“tragic house”)🎶 Rhyme (“track/black”, “minute/in it”) |
| 2 | The speaker says he’s never seen a haunted house, but wishes this one were haunted so it wouldn’t feel so lonely. | 👻 Irony (wishing it were haunted)🎭 Personification (“lonely”)🗣️ Alliteration (“mirth and sorrowings”) |
| 3 | The house needs repairs, cleaning, and care, but more than anything, it needs people to live in it again. | 🔧 Imagery (glass, paint, vines)❤️ Personification (“needs people”)🎶 Rhyme (“glass/grass”, “tied/inside”) |
| 4 | The speaker dreams of having money so he could restore the house and give it freely to someone needing a home. | 💭 Hypothetical (“If I had…”)💡 Symbolism (house as hope/home)🎶 Rhyme (“paid/spade”, “be/free”) |
| 5 | A brand-new empty house might look strange, but it’s not sad because it hasn’t known life inside yet. | 🎩 Simile (“like a hat”)💬 Contrast (new vs. old house)🎶 Rhyme (“door/store”, “lone/known”) |
| 6 | A house that once held a family, laughter, and love is the saddest when left alone and empty. | 👶 Imagery (“baby’s laugh”, “stumbling feet”)🤗 Personification (“loving wooden arms”)🏚️ Tone (melancholy, nostalgic) |
| 7 | The speaker always looks back at the house with pain, imagining it has a broken heart from being abandoned. | 💔 Metaphor (“broken heart”)👁️ Repetition (“whenever I go”)🎭 Personification (“hurts me”, “broken heart”) |
Literary And Poetic Devices: “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer
| Device 🌈 | Example ✍️ | Explanation 💬 |
| 💬 Assonance | “track / black” | Repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words to enhance rhythm or mood. |
| 🧱 Contrast | “new house” vs. “old house” | Juxtaposing two ideas (new vs. lived-in) to highlight emotional depth. |
| 🧠 Enjambment | “I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, / but I always stop for a minute…” | A sentence or phrase that runs over into the next line without a pause. |
| 🎭 Hyperbole | “I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times” | Exaggeration used to emphasize feeling or create dramatic effect. |
| 👻 Irony | “I wish it were [haunted]” | A contradiction between expectations and reality; he wishes for ghosts to make it less lonely. |
| 🖼️ Imagery | “crumbling roof,” “shutters fallen apart” | Descriptive language that appeals to the senses to create vivid pictures. |
| 🕯️ Metaphor | “a house with a broken heart” | Comparing the house to a living being with emotions, without using “like” or “as.” |
| 🎼 Meter | Regular beat and rhythm (iambic tetrameter) | Structured rhythmic pattern in the poem’s lines. |
| 🔮 Mood | Melancholic and nostalgic | The emotional feeling evoked by the poem’s language and imagery. |
| 🎵 Onomatopoeia | Implied through “echoed” | Sound-imitating words, though subtly used, enrich the acoustic effect. |
| 🧠 Oxymoron | “lonely haunted” (implied wish) | Two seemingly contradictory terms appear in conjunction. |
| 💡 Personification | “a house with a broken heart” | Giving human emotions and traits to inanimate objects. |
| 🪞Repetition | “the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it” | Repeating words or phrases for emphasis and rhythm. |
| 💭 Rhyme | “track / black,” “minute / in it” | Correspondence of sounds at the end of lines to create musicality. |
| 🎩 Simile | “like a hat on its block in the store” | A direct comparison using “like” to describe the emptiness of a new house. |
| 🎚️ Symbolism | The house represents lost human presence and memory | Objects stand for larger ideas—here, a house symbolizes family and life. |
| 🎙️ Tone | Reflective, sorrowful, nostalgic | The poet’s attitude toward the subject, conveyed through word choice and style. |
Themes: “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer
🏚️ 1. Abandonment and Decay: In “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer, the image of the old, deteriorating house conveys a deep sense of abandonment and loss. Kilmer’s language illustrates the house’s physical decay: “with its shingles broken and black,” “crumbling roof,” and “shutters fallen apart.” These vivid descriptions reflect more than structural neglect—they suggest emotional desolation. The repetition of “the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it” reinforces the emptiness the speaker feels. Through the powerful metaphor “a house with a broken heart,” Kilmer personifies the structure, making it a living symbol of forgotten lives and memories that have been left behind.
🧡 2. Emotional Attachment to Place: In “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer, the speaker’s deep connection to the abandoned house shows how places can become emotionally significant. Though he has passed the house many times, he confesses, “I always stop for a minute,” suggesting a moment of reflection and reverence. The speaker imagines the life once present: “a house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet.” Even in its emptiness, the house stirs empathy, and the speaker even wishes it were haunted, stating, “it wouldn’t be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.” Kilmer presents the house as a vessel of past joy and sorrow—one that continues to affect those who encounter it.
🌱 3. Hope and Restoration: In “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer, the theme of hope appears in the speaker’s longing to restore the abandoned home. He imagines what he would do if he had the means: “I’d put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.” This vision is not just about repair—it’s about purpose and generosity. He dreams of filling the house again by giving it to “some people who wanted a home.” This idea of restoration goes beyond the physical, showing Kilmer’s belief in the possibility of renewal and the redemptive power of compassion and community. The broken house becomes a symbol of hope, waiting to be revived.
🏠 4. The Meaning of Home: In “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer, the poem explores what transforms a mere structure into a true home. Kilmer contrasts a lifeless house with one full of memory. A new empty house, he says, “cannot be sad and lone / for the lack of something within it that it has never known.” But a home that has “sheltered life” and “put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife” is full of meaning—and pain when it is left empty. Through this contrast, Kilmer shows that a house becomes a home only through lived experience, love, and memory. Its sadness comes not from being empty, but from having once been full.
Literary Theories and “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer
| Literary Theory | Application to the Poem | Reference from the Poem |
| 📏 Formalism(Focus on form, structure, and language) | Formalist analysis would examine Kilmer’s use of rhyme, meter, repetition, and personification. The poem’s iambic rhythm, consistent quatrains, and emotional tone are central to its effect. | “The house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it” — repetition & rhythm; “track / black”, “minute / in it” — rhyme |
| 🧠 Psychoanalytic Theory(Focus on internal emotions, subconscious, and projections) | A psychoanalytic reading might see the house as a projection of the speaker’s own inner loneliness or unresolved grief. The wish for ghosts symbolizes a desire to fill emotional voids. | “I know this house isn’t haunted, and I wish it were, I do” — emotional displacement; “it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof” — identification with the house’s pain |
| 💰 Marxist Theory(Focus on class, economy, and ownership) | This perspective might explore the house as a symbol of lost working-class life or housing inequality. The speaker wishes to redistribute wealth by fixing the house and giving it away freely. | “If I had a lot of money… I’d find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free” — critique of wealth and class |
| 👁️ Reader-Response Theory(Focus on individual interpretation and emotional response) | Reader-response theory highlights how readers may bring their own memories of home, loss, or nostalgia to the poem. The emotional tone invites a highly personal connection. | “I always stop for a minute” — encourages reflective engagement; “a house with a broken heart” — metaphor that resonates subjectively with readers |
Critical Questions about “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer
❓ 1. In “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer, why does the speaker stop to look at the house every time he passes it?
The speaker stops to look at the house each time he passes because it evokes a deep, almost spiritual sorrow. In “I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute / And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it,” the repetition of “the house” and the adjective “tragic” show how strongly the house affects him. It’s not just the physical decay that draws his attention—it’s the imagined past life it once held. His continued observance reflects a human need to connect with symbols of memory and loss, even when they are anonymous. The house becomes a quiet monument to forgotten stories, and the speaker honors that by never walking by without acknowledging it.
❓ 2. How does Kilmer use personification in “The House with Nobody in It” to create emotional depth?
Kilmer uses personification in “The House with Nobody in It” to transform the house into a being with emotional presence, which deepens the reader’s empathy. For example, he writes, “For I can’t help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart,” suggesting the house experiences sadness. Earlier, he says, “it wouldn’t be so lonely if it had a ghost or two,” attributing loneliness—a human emotion—to the building. Through these lines, Kilmer gives the house a voice and a soul, encouraging the reader to see it not as an object, but as a vessel for life, now suffering from emptiness. This technique turns an inanimate structure into a symbol of human absence and emotional residue.
❓ 3. What does the contrast between the new and old houses reveal in “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer?
The contrast between the new and old empty houses in “The House with Nobody in It” reveals the emotional weight that memory gives to a space. Kilmer explains that “a new house standing empty… cannot be sad and lone / For the lack of something within it that it has never known.” A new house, while empty, is simply unfinished; it has no history. But the abandoned farmhouse is mournful because it once “sheltered life,” and “put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife.” It is the presence of past life—and its absence now—that makes the old house tragic. Kilmer uses this contrast to suggest that physical structures only become meaningful through the people and emotions that inhabit them.
❓ 4. How does the speaker’s dream of restoring the house in “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer reflect themes of compassion and hope?
The speaker’s imagined act of restoring the house in “The House with Nobody in It” reflects deep compassion and a hopeful view of human kindness. He envisions a future where he would, “put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade,” and “find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.” This dream goes beyond renovation—it’s about returning life and dignity to something forgotten. It reveals the speaker’s desire to not just preserve the past, but to create a better future. Kilmer embeds in this vision a quiet social conscience, suggesting that even a broken house—and by extension, broken lives—can be healed through generosity and care.
Literary Works Similar to “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer
- “The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare
Like Kilmer’s poem, this explores the haunting emptiness of a house, where absence is more powerful than presence, evoking a mysterious silence and human yearning. - “The Deserted House” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
This poem, like Kilmer’s, personifies an empty house to symbolize the loss of life and soul, suggesting that a building once full of spirit becomes ghostly in its silence. - “Abandoned Farmhouse” by Ted Kooser
Kooser’s poem, much like Kilmer’s, examines an empty rural home through physical details, inferring the vanished lives and emotional stories that once filled it. - “Home” by Edgar Guest
Both poems share a nostalgic reverence for the emotional warmth of a true home, emphasizing that love and family—not architecture—make a place meaningful. - “The House on the Hill” by Edwin Arlington Robinson
This poem also centers on an abandoned house as a symbol of memory, sorrow, and finality, using repetition and tone to echo Kilmer’s themes of loss and longing.
Representative Quotations of “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer
| 🔖 Quotation | 📚 Context | 🧠 Theoretical Perspective |
| “Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track” | Opens the poem with a peaceful, familiar routine that grounds the emotional journey. | Reader-Response – Engages readers through repetition and personal reflection. |
| “The tragic house, the house with nobody in it.” | Uses repetition to emphasize the house’s desolate and abandoned state. | Formalism – Focuses on structure and emotional tone created through repetition. |
| “I know this house isn’t haunted, and I wish it were, I do;” | Speaker expresses a wish for ghosts to make the house less lonely. | Psychoanalytic – Suggests emotional projection and a desire to fill inner emptiness. |
| “It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;” | Describes the visible signs of neglect and decay in physical detail. | Marxist – Highlights themes of abandonment and neglect tied to class and labor. |
| “But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.” | Points out that emotional emptiness matters more than physical repairs. | Humanist – Stresses the centrality of human presence and emotional connection. |
| “I’d buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be” | The speaker dreams of restoring the house to its former, meaningful state. | Marxist – Imagines redistribution and the return of dignity to a lost home. |
| “Like a hat on its block in the store.” | A simile that makes the new house seem lifeless and decorative. | Structuralism – Uses objects (hat, house) as cultural signs of meaning or lack thereof. |
| “A house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet,” | Recalls imagined past joy and love once present in the house. | Psychoanalytic – Projects nurturing memories onto the space to fill emotional void. |
| “Is the saddest sight, when it’s left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.” | Declares the emotional power of seeing a once-loved home now empty. | Reader-Response – Invokes reader empathy and personal experiences with loss. |
| “A house with a broken heart.” | Final metaphor encapsulates the emotional and symbolic pain of the empty house. | Formalism – Examines metaphor and tone to understand the poem’s emotional core. |
Suggested Readings: “The House with Nobody in It” by Joyce Kilmer
- BREGY, KATHERINE. “JOYCE KILMER: THE MAN AND HIS WORK.” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, vol. 30, no. 3, 1919, pp. 257–65. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44208520. Accessed 8 June 2025.
- Kilmer, Joyce. “The House With Nobody In It.” The Journal of Education, vol. 110, no. 4, 1929, pp. 85–85. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42837899. Accessed 8 June 2025.
- HALL, CECIL B. “Expression in Poetry Appreciation.” The Elementary English Review, vol. 8, no. 10, 1931, pp. 249–50. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41381452. Accessed 8 June 2025.
- HUBER, MIRIAM BLANTON. “CHILDREN’S POETRY (Continued).” The Elementary English Review, vol. 3, no. 9, 1926, pp. 287–99. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41382168. Accessed 8 June 2025.