When I come up the hill at night
And see my home far, high, aloof,
All Heaven’s stars seem glittering
Upon its storm-worn roof.
They outline all the gable steep
Above the square, unlighted panes,
And all along the eaves they hang
In bright and sparkling chains.
Above the square, unlighted panes,
And all along the eaves they hang
In bright and sparkling chains.
Dear house, thine ugliness by day
Is turned to beauty overnight,
And all thy dark, unlovely lines
Flash into lines of light.
Yea, all about thee, silently,
When the dusk lets down her purple bars,
The very winds that sweep the hill
Shake loose the silver stars.
Far do I wander from thy peace,
Far from thy simple, sweet content;
Often in idleness and wrong
My empty days are spent.
Yet nightly up the lonely hill,
Above the town, above the sea,
I climb with lifted eyes to find,
The stars that shine for me.
So, though I wander late and far,
When Death lets down the purple bars,
Dear God, wilt thou not let me in
Thine own House-of-the-Stars?
“House-of-the-Stars” as it appears in Higginson’s The Voice of April-Land and Other Poems (1903).