The Building
"Build me a house," said the Master,"But not on the shifting sand,Mid the wreck and roar of tempests,A house that will firmly stand.
"I will bring thee windows of agates,And gates of carbuncles bright,And thy fairest courts and portalsShall be filled with love and light.
"Thou shalt build with fadeless rubies,All fashioned around the throne,A house that shall last forever,With Christ as the cornerstone.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- shalt
- 2d per. sing. of Shall.
- fadeless a.
- Not liable to fade; unfading.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Building is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #679; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, The Building, in Poems (1854–1871), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #679, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/harper-poems/the-building.html, id L10552.
Form and metre
The Building is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.7 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A master · sandA · tempests · standA
- 2 -A-A agates · brightA · portals · lightA
- 3 -A-A rubies · throneA · forever · cornerstoneA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| "Build me a house," said the Master, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| "But not on the shifting sand, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Mid the wreck and roar of tempests, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| A house that will firmly stand. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| "I will bring thee windows of agates, | 9 | ····/˘·/˘ |
| And gates of carbuncles bright, | 6 | ······ |
| And thy fairest courts and portals | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Shall be filled with love and light. | 8 | ···˘···· |
| "Thou shalt build with fadeless rubies, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| All fashioned around the throne, | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| A house that shall last forever, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| With Christ as the cornerstone. | 7 | ····/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.