| |
| IN my house on a dry high hill | |
| Strange things seemed stranger still: | |
| When the windows opened each morning | |
| Oceans entered without warning; | |
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| When the curtains closed each night, | 5 |
| Entered light, sweet sacred light. | |
| Long I lived there with the weather— | |
| (With the weather, close together). | |
| |
| Had no teacher save one chewink, | |
| Scolding madly, “Make you think!” | 10 |
| Thinking made me almost ill, | |
| It was so high on that dry hill! | |
| |
| And yet I thought three times a day | |
| In a hilly happy harmless way: | |
| Thought the mountains were animals, | 15 |
| Thought the clouds high safe stone walls; | |
| |
| Thought King Solomon came to call, | |
| Climbing over the cloudy wall— | |
| Begged him run and catch the brook | |
| While I got my shepherd crook! | 20 |
| |
| Once while I made the thick white soup, | |
| Saint John sat upon the stoop; | |
| Saint John pointed out to me | |
| Lotus-buds on my oak-tree! | |
| |
| And then a partridge whirred in the wood, | 25 |
| Fluttering lame as a partridge should. | |
| Partridge turned to a paradise-bird, | |
| Uttering ecstasy word by word, | |
| |
| Till smoke of the chimney writhed, withdrew, | |
| And sowed a seed, and rose and flew! | 30 |
| (I lived in that house four years and a week; | |
| Well I know whereof I speak.) | |
| |
| Smoke-seed grew to a tree of flame! | |
| O fire-tree! Red-flowering shame! | |
| Devouring my dear house branch and root! | 35 |
| Now I have eaten of one more fruit…. | |
| |
| Was it too happy, was it too high— | |
| My little house close to the sky? | |
| Was it too useful, was it too good— | |
| My little house beside the wood? | 40 |
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