The Old Brick Wall Poem by Charles Anthony Dickens

There stands a wall, across my street
Not far away… ‘just several feet,
And everyday I sit and stare, upon this wall
It’s always there.
A red brick wall, now weather beat


Upon this wall, across the top
And hanging down the sides, does drop,
An ivy creeper dark and green, and when I’ve watched I’ve often seen,
a bird fly to the wall and stop


Then, for a while, she looks around
Surveys the sky, and then the ground.
And when she finally perceives, it’s safe;
She dips between the leaves
And disappears without a sound.


And in the morning, down the wall
A hundred snails are seen to crawl.
A hundred shiny shells of snails, which leave behind a hundred trails,
To give the birds, their breakfast call.


And different dogs, throughout the day,
police the wall for fine bouquets
of other dogs who roam and stray, and may have wandered past this way
And left their calling card today.


Old Mrs Green will pass by, soon.
She always does! At half past noon
She leaves her house and takes a walk along
the street and stops to talk;
And as she strolls she hums a tune


Of all the times that she’s passed by
I’ve never seen her glance her eye
toward the wall. But still, instead, she keeps on looking straight ahead,
Or gazes up toward the sky…

…………………………………………………..

The other day, as I cleaned round
the attic; in a box I found
an item that was buried quite, deep beneath
and out of sight.
A book of memories, leather-bound


And so I made the time to look
at photos, that my Granddad took.
And in the images I saw, a picture
of the wall was stored;
Depicted in this photo book


One, with Granddad standing tall.
His aged mother, wrapped in shawl;
Whilst father poses, with his friends, for sepia prints,
From ancient lens.
And in the background, stands the wall.


Now Granddads gone, and Father too
The wall still stands there, right in view.
Yet strangely, as the years pass by, and age
is changing in my eye.
The wall is looking older too.


And sometime, in a future year,
The wall, perchance, may still be here
And maybe someone new shall stare, upon the wall
And watch with care,
Life’s cycle as it passes there.