House

HOUSE, n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe. House of Correction, a place of reward for political and personal service, and for the detention of offenders and appropriations. House of God, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it. House-dog, a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult persons passing by and appal the hardy visitor. House-maid, a youngerly person of the opposing sex employed to be variously disagreeable and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has pleased God to place her.

2007 Update: A love more powerful than wanderlust when mortgaged.

There are seven loves a boy will know
Along his life's great curve
Each one, like lye, corrodes the soul
And, like alcohol, preserves.

The first of these is love of kind:
Of mother and father and cousin.
It's milk is milk and does remind
To wash after each stranger he does in.

The second love is love of self,
Learned at the onset of speaking,
Enobling even the commonest whelp
And debasing the neighboring king.

The third affection he will know
Is love of competition.
Whether gifted well to run and throw
Or slander and sedition.

The fourth love is known as romance
And lasts until he's jaded.
It once began at High School Dance
But starts now when he's first graded.

The next we find, if life is kind
Is love of property:
A house, a car, a spouse, his mind.
It's adored that comes unmoored and takes his dignity.

He may yet age and then grow fond
Of rectitude and right;
A pious fish in empty pond,
Bubbling righteous spite.

The love to which man comes at last
Is for silence, even death:
Released from tales of his past
And recounting of his debt.

-- Omar Kháyyam Boone