“Verses upon the Burning of our House” Introduction

• "Verses upon the Burning of our House" was written by the Puritan poet Anne Bradstreet in response to the real-life destruction of her home in Andover, Massachusetts, which burned to the ground in 1666. The speaker, generally taken as Bradstreet herself, grieves the loss her home and all her material possessions, but also argues that this tragedy was God's way of teaching her a spiritual lesson about the value of piety and faith. The speaker takes comfort in the belief that no amount of earthly "wealth" comes close to the spiritual wealth that awaits the faithful in the afterlife—where God, "that mighty Architect," has built a heavenly home furnished with "glory."

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“Verses upon the Burning of our House” Summary

• I was in bed on a quiet night, not looking for or expecting anything bad to happen, when suddenly I was woken up by a booming sound and awful, terrified screams. Nobody ever wants to hear someone repeatedly shouting, "fire!"

  I jumped up, and saw the bright light of the fire. I cried out to God, asking him to keep me calm and strong in my distress and to not leave me helpless. I got out of the burning house and watched the flames devour it completely.

  When I couldn't look at my ruined house any longer, I thanked God, who both gives and takes, for turning all my possessions to ash. This was God's will, and thus what happened was just and fair. All my possessions belonged to God in the first place, so who am I to complain? Even if he took everything from us, we'd still have what we need.

  I often passed by the ruins of my house and took a sad, sidelong glance at the places where I used to eat or rest. Here's where the trunk used to be, and the chest was over there. There's where I kept my favorite things. All my pleasant belongings are now just ashes, and I'll never get to look at them again. The house will never again host any guests under its roof, nor will anyone eat a little something at its table. There will be no more pleasant conversation, or stories about the past. No candles will shine in you, my house, nor will I ever again hear the voice of my husband inside your walls. You will be silent forever. Farewell, farewell—all earthly life is only temporary.

  Then I quickly scold myself: did I really think that all my riches existed in this mortal life? Did I set my hopes on fleeting material belongings that inevitably decay? Did I put my trust in fleshly existence? I tell myself to raise my thoughts toward heaven and so that these negative thoughts that cloud my mind will go away. I already have a strong house up on high, designed by God, the greatest architect of them all. This house is furnished with glory, and will never fall down—unlike my house on earth. Heaven's house has already been bought and paid off by God, because God has everything. Who knows how much a house like that would cost, yet God gives it to us for free. That makes me plenty rich, and I don't need anything else. Goodbye to all my earthly goods, which were never really mine. Don't let me love this world anymore, because my spiritual hope and wealth await me in heaven.

“Verses upon the Burning of our House” Themes

• 

  Faith, Suffering, and Acceptance

  The Puritan poet Anne Bradstreet wrote “Verses upon the Burning of our House” in response to the destruction of her home and possessions by a fire. Though this event is painful and traumatic, the speaker consoles herself by arguing that God gave the speaker everything she has, and thus has the right—and power—to take it all away. In fact, it’s all part of God’s master plan to teach the speaker a lesson about piety. The poem thus praises trust in God and shows how faith provides humanity with a way of accepting and understanding suffering.

  The fire devastates the speaker’s entire world, and the poem doesn’t pretend otherwise. The speaker describes how she ran out of the house hearing screams, escaping just in time to see everything she has reduced to ash. This home was more than just a physical building, too: it was a place of love and warmth, where friends, family, and neighbors could eat together and exchange stories. Losing her home, then, is extremely painful.

  But even as she runs out of the house, the speaker asks for God to help her, foregrounding the strength of her faith even in the middle of tragedy. Rather than curse God, she turns towards God in this moment, even intensifying her religious devotion in response to her suffering. God may do things that are hard to understand, the poem implies, but this difficulty only proves that God, rather than human beings, knows best.

  Without minimizing the human cost of the fire, then, the poem presents God as perfect and “just.” The speaker even say that God could leave the speaker with absolutely nothing, and still she and her family would have enough “sufficient.” In other words, faith alone is all the speaker needs. That’s because, even in life’s darkest moments, religious faith can offer solace, direction, and purpose—in the speaker’s own word, her faith “straighten[s]” her out.

  The speaker also has a clear vision of the afterlife, in which she will live in eternal glory in the heavenly kingdom that God built. In keeping with the speaker’s Puritan views, life on earth is a kind of preparation for eternal life in heaven. It follows that no one, the poem argues, should dwell on their suffering too long given that God has prepared for them the “hope and treasure” of the afterlife. The world may be full of tragedy, but this doesn’t change the fact that the kingdom of heaven awaits.

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• 

  Material vs. Spiritual Wealth

  The speaker views the destruction of her house as God teaching her an important spiritual lesson about piety. After losing everything that she owns, the speaker questions the value of owning anything at all. Declaring earthly possessions to be nothing but “vanity,” the speaker argues that fragile, fleeting material wealth can't compare to spiritual wealth—that is, to the everlasting "hope and treasure" of heaven.

  This idea doesn’t mean that actually accepting the loss of her home is easy, and the poem shows how material possessions exert a strong, sentimental hold on people’s lives and identities. The speaker’s house wasn’t just a house, but also a place to host guests, have “pleasant” conversations, swap stories, and eat meals. The speaker’s memories are wrapped up in her home, which means that its loss feels painful and destabilizing.

  But the speaker goes on to admit that the seeming security of material possessions was always an illusion. Looking at the “Ruins” of her house, the speaker chides herself for “fix[ing]” her “hope on mouldering dust” and “arm[s] of flesh”—in other words, for sticking her joy to things that would inevitably decay and disappear. The destruction of her home provides the speaker with a stark reminder of the fact the pleasures of life on earth are transient, ephemeral, and, compared to the riches of the afterlife, insignificant.

  What’s more, the speaker says, earthly possessions don’t actually belong to people anyway! All creation is God’s creation, which is why the speaker calls her house and belongings “pelf”—an archaic word which means stolen goods or money. Her possessions really belonged to God the whole time, and the speaker thus tells herself to “raise up [her] thoughts above the sky”—to let go of material attachments to the earthly realm and consider the heavenly.

  Nothing on earth can live up to what God has created for humanity, the speaker says, insisting that her “hope and treasure lies above.” God’s “house” (i.e., heaven itself) is “richly furnished” with “glory” and, unlike the speaker’s, “[s]tands permanent”—lasts forever. Thus though she grieves the loss of her material possessions, she understands that these pale in comparison to what is to come in the afterlife. In fact, the speaker only really misses her "Table" because it was the site of communion and companionship—and if it’s these that she longs for, she will be truly rich in the afterlife because she will be closer than ever to God. If a house represents security and comfort, no house could be more secure and comfortable than the one created by “that might Architect” in the heavens “above.”

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Verses upon the Burning of our House”

• Lines 1-6

  In silent night when rest I took,
  For sorrow near I did not look,
  I waken'd was with thund'ring noise
  And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice.
  That fearful sound of "fire" and "fire,"
  Let no man know is my Desire.

  The poem gets underway with two lines of scene-setting. Though it's told retrospectively (in the past-tense), there's an immediacy to the descriptions in these lines that make them feel raw and recent.

  Not long ago, the speaker was sleeping peacefully through a "silent night" (this is not an allusion to the Christmas hymn!). She was happy with life, not anticipating "sorrow" to rear its ugly head any time soon. Her sleep was interrupted, however, by terrifying screams and the "thund'ring noise" of a fire.

  The sounds of these lines captures the immediate, visceral horror of the flames as they consume the speaker's house. The fire seems to be all around the speaker, reflected by the diacope of the word "fire" itself (which gets repeated in line 5), as well as by the alliteration and consonance of the /f/ sound in "fire" and "fearful." The word "thund'ring," meanwhile, might subtly foreshadow how the speaker comes to view this traumatic event as part of God's master plan (given that God is often symbolically linked to thunder).

  The speaker then says in line 6 that, naturally, she didn't want this to happen! This might seem like an obvious point, but it's important to state this up top so that the speaker can develop the transformation of her perspective. She was scared and traumatized, but, by the end of the poem, will reframe this event as something positive.

• Lines 7-12

  I starting up, the light did spy,
  And to my God my heart did cry
  To straighten me in my Distress
  And not to leave me succourless.
  Then coming out, behold a space
  The flame consume my dwelling place.

  

  

• Lines 13-16

  And when I could no longer look,
  I blest his grace that gave and took,
  That laid my goods now in the dust.
  Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just.

  

  

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• Lines 17-20

  It was his own; it was not mine.
  Far be it that I should repine,
  He might of all justly bereft
  But yet sufficient for us left.

  

  

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• Lines 21-24

  When by the Ruins oft I past
  My sorrowing eyes aside did cast
  And here and there the places spy
  Where oft I sate and long did lie.

  

  

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• Lines 25-30

  Here stood that Trunk, and there that chest,
  There lay that store I counted best,
  My pleasant things in ashes lie
  And them behold no more shall I.
  Under the roof no guest shall sit,
  Nor at thy Table eat a bit.

  

  

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• Lines 31-36

  No pleasant talk shall 'ere be told
  Nor things recounted done of old.
  No Candle 'ere shall shine in Thee,
  Nor bridegroom's voice ere heard shall bee.
  In silence ever shalt thou lie.
  Adieu, Adieu, All's Vanity.

  

  

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• Lines 37-42

  Then straight I 'gin my heart to chide:
  And did thy wealth on earth abide,
  Didst fix thy hope on mouldring dust,
  The arm of flesh didst make thy trust?
  Raise up thy thoughts above the sky
  That dunghill mists away may fly.

  

  

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• Lines 43-50

  Thou hast a house on high erect
  Fram'd by that mighty Architect,
  With glory richly furnished
  Stands permanent, though this be fled.
  It's purchased and paid for too
  By him who hath enough to do.
  A price so vast as is unknown,
  Yet by his gift is made thine own.

  

  

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• Lines 51-54

  There's wealth enough; I need no more.
  Farewell, my pelf; farewell, my store.
  The world no longer let me love;
  My hope and Treasure lies above.

  

  

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“Verses upon the Burning of our House” Symbols

• 

  The Speaker's House and Possessions

  The speaker's house and all its trappings—the table, trunk, chest, etc.—are of course literal item in the poem. At the same time, all these possessions symbolically represent the earthly, material world more broadly. In the speaker's mind, this world is temporary, whereas God's "house" in heaven is everlasting. The speaker sees the destruction of her house as God reminding her that all things on earth, including the speaker herself, will one day turn to "mouldring dust." As such, there's no use grieving the loss of material goods, nor in tying one's happiness to them in the first place.

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“Verses upon the Burning of our House” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Alliteration

  The poem uses alliteration to bring its images to life, whether they're terrifying—like the chaotic scene of the fire itself—or more pleasant, like a day of rest in the house that has since burned down. This device, along with consonance and assonance, also lends the poem a sense of music.

  The alliteration in line 3 is likely incidental (in that it's the result of grammatically necessary words like "was" and "with"), but this moment of increased lyricism also might evoke the noise and terror that wakes the speaker up; by repeating the whooshing /w/ sound, it's as though the speaker has suddenly sucked the air out of the poem.

  The next example of alliteration is more striking. It comes in line 5, which describes the moment when the speaker was woken up by shouting and screaming:

  That fearful sound of "fire" and "fire,"

  Here, the poem turns up its own volume through both alliteration and diacope (the repetition of the word "fire"). The house-burning was noisy and terrifying, and so it makes sense for the poem to try and capture this panic through these quick, flitting /f/ sounds.

  Later, alliteration simply draws readers' attention to the speaker's grief—which is so intense that she can "no longer look" at the ruins of her home—and to God's power ("grace") to "give" and "take" from human beings.

  Finally, towards the end of the poem, the speaker reframes her loss by affirming that she already has a far superior house: the heavenly kingdom of the afterlife, created by God. This metaphor coincides with alliteration, as if in tribute to the "mighty[ness]" of that great "Architect" in the sky. Both line 43 and line 47 create this effect:

  Thou hast a house on high erect
  [...]
  It's purchased and paid for too

  Both examples are bold and clear, showing the strength of the speaker's faith in the fact that a better world awaits her in heaven.

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• Allusion

  

  
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• Caesura

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

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• End-Stopped Line

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

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• Extended Metaphor

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

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• Rhetorical Question

  

  

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"Verses upon the Burning of our House" Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Thund'ring
• Piteous
• Spy
• Straighten Me
• Succourless
• blest
• His Grace
• Goods
• Yea
• 'Twas
• Just
• Repine
• Bereft
• Oft
• Sate
• Thy
• Shalt
• Thou
• Adieu
• Vanity
• Straight
• 'gin
• Chide
• Abide
• Didst
• Mouldring
• Dunghill
• Hast
• High Erect
• That Mighty Architect
• Thine
• Pelf

• Abbreviation of "thundering" (here meaning booming/very loud).

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Verses upon the Burning of our House”

• Form

  "Verses upon the Burning of our House" consists of one long, unbroken, 54-line block of poetry! The poem does have a structure through its use of rhyming couplets, but there are no stanza breaks (despite the poem having some quite distinct sections within the text itself).

  Many Bradstreet poems do have stanzas, so it's worth thinking about why she chose this uninterrupted form here. The title provides a clue: these are verses (lines of poetry) written "upon" the destruction of her house in the fire. In other words, this is a pretty immediate response, with the word "upon" suggesting that the fire happened recently. With that in mind, the form perhaps lends the poem authenticity as it follows the speaker's thought process from earthly sorrow to spiritual optimism. It allows for changes in direction (the shift from acceptance to nostalgic mourning that occurs between lines 20 and 21, for example) without losing the sense that this is one woman's genuine attempt to find meaning in a tragic event in real-time.

  Perhaps, too, the shape of the text on the page gently supports the image of a tall, strong, permanent house—the one built by God, "that mighty Architect."

• Meter

  The poem uses iambic tetrameter throughout, meaning each line has four iambs: feet with an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern (da-DUM). For example, line 1 scans:

  In si- | lent night | when rest | I took,

  Overall, the meter is very steady and consistent. The poem thus feels carefully constructed and controlled, suggesting that the speaker is trying to think through this tragedy clearly and rationally.

  Iambs are a very common foot in English poetry because they mimic the sound of regular speech, and the dependable iambic meter might also make the poem feel a bit more authentic, as though it is free from poetic artifice. Bradstreet herself once said that wrote not to "show [her] skill, but to declare the truth...[and] the glory of God." The emphasis is on the spiritual lesson, not on fancy metrical variations.

• Rhyme Scheme

  The poem uses rhyming couplets from start to finish:

  AABBCCDD

  ...and so forth. These couplets are so steady that they become almost hypnotic, fitting with the idea that this is a kind of meditation "upon" the fire and the destruction it caused. The poem's rhyme scheme and meter are so steady as to almost fade into the background of the poem, which makes sense if the speaker wants to keep the focus on God's lessons.

  Occasionally, rhyming pairs chime together with dramatic effect. Take, for example, the "dust"/"just" rhyme in lines 15 and 16. This neatly sums up the speaker's religious views: earthly life comes from and returns to "dust," and anything that happens is "just" (fair) because God planned it that way. Dust, then, equals justice.

“Verses upon the Burning of our House” Speaker

• Anne Bradstreet wrote this poem in response to the actual burning of her house, so it's safe to say that the speaker is the poet herself! Readers can tell a lot about Bradstreet from what she's written here. This is a woman who clearly loved her home and feels sorrow at its loss, but also seems to feel a bit guilty about that sorrow. As a devoted Puritan, she believes she must trust in God's will, and thus accept the loss of her home with grace.

  That doesn't mean it's easy to do so, though, and the poem provides an authentic account of one person's attempt to come to terms with trauma. Throughout the poem, the speaker's mood changes. She's made her main point as early as line 14—that whatever people gain or lose in life, it is God's to "giveth and taketh" away. In other words, if your house burns down, it was just and fair that it did so. But soon enough, she looks over the ruins with nostalgia and regret, pinpointing all the possessions and comforts that are gone forever.

  The speaker thus wavers between a natural human reaction to loss and the spiritual teachings of her religion. She is self-critical, chastising herself for getting carried away with the former at the expense of the latter, and ultimately resolves to look forward to the afterlife rather than lament what happens during life on earth.

“Verses upon the Burning of our House” Setting

• The poem is set in the immediate aftermath of a house fire. The speaker has escaped her home in time to see everything she owns reduced to ash and dust. In lines 21 to 36, the speaker looks at the "Ruins" of her house, and nostalgically remembers all the good times she and her family once had there. A home is not just a building, the speaker implies, but also a place where memories are created.

  While the poem is very much built around earthly experience (the reader can almost see the smoldering ashes of the house!), the speaker also makes sense of what has happened by looking forward to an entirely different place. Though she has lost her home on earth, the far superior kingdom of heaven awaits her.

Literary and Historical Context of “Verses upon the Burning of our House”

• Literary Context

  Anne Bradstreet, born in England in 1612, is considered America's first published poet. Unlike many women of her era, she had access to a decent library of books from any early age and was well-educated according to the wishes of her father, Thomas Dudley. Early influences include Guillame du Bartas and Sir Philip Sidney, for whom she even wrote an elegy.

  This particular poem was written in 1666, six years before Bradstreet's death, and responds to the real-life destruction of Bradstreet's home. Bradstreet had probably lived in the house discussed in this poem for around 20 years. Among the possessions she lost in the fire were her collection of books, and her papers—including, perhaps, poems that will never get to be read!

  There is some debate about how Bradstreet's poems came to be published, and for a woman to be published at all was highly unusual. Her one collection, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung in America, was brought to England for publication by her brother-in-law, John Woodbridge. This poem was written much later, and is Bradstreet's penultimate composition (her final known poem is "As Weary Pilgrim").

  As a devout Puritan, religion was nearly always at the center of Bradstreet's poetry. Writing poetry was relatively common among Puritan communities, but it almost always was meant to teach a religious lesson. Bradstreet is one of two poets of the era whose verse has stood the test of time (the other being Edward Taylor; check out his poem "Huswifery"). In 1956, for example, the poet John Berryman composed Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, a long poem that marvelled at her determination to write "high verse [...] in a land that cared and cares so little for it."

  Historical Context

  The Puritan pilgrims were a group of English Protestants who moved to the so-called New World—America—during the 16th and 17th centuries. They disagreed with the religious direction of the Church of England, seeking to purify it of Catholic practices. Doing so, they believed, would also purify humankind's relationship with God.

  In 1620, a number of separatists travelled from England to New England in what would become U.S. Known as Pilgrims, they sailed on the famous Mayflower and are an important part of the (white) American origin story and folklore. Around a hundred passengers undertook the arduous crossing over the Atlantic, with around half of them surviving to establish a colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Once there, they often faced starvation, disease, and conflict with the indigenous population.

  Bradstreet herself travelled with her family in 1630 on the Arbella, arriving initially in Salem (of witch-trials fame) before settling elsewhere in Massachusetts. Bradstreet recalls how her heart "rose" at the sight of America, meaning not that she felt a burst of optimism, but worry and doubt. For the time, though, she lived a fairly secure and stable life, giving birth to multiple children who in turn had many grandkids. This poem was written near the end of her life, and, by coincidence, in the same year as the Great Fire of London.

More “Verses upon the Burning of our House” Resources

• External Resources

  • America's First Poet — An NPR piece about the life and work of Anne Bradstreet. 

  • Homage to Mistress Bradstreet — A poetic tribute to Anne Bradstreet by the Pulitzer-winning poet John Berryman. 

  • Searching for Bradstreet's House — An article about the search for the location of Bradstreet's Andover home. 

  • The Puritan Experience — Learn more about Bradstreet's faith. 

  • Bradstreet's Life Story — Check out a more in-depth biography of Bradstreet from the Poetry Foundation.  

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Anne Bradstreet

  • Before the Birth of One of Her Children

  • The Author to Her Book

  • To My Dear and Loving Husband