{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/the-building",
 "title": "The Building",
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Atlanta Offering: Poems",
 "book_slug": "atlanta-offering",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 12,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1895,
  "venue": "Atlanta Offering: Poems (1895)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
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  "sources": [
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   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-1871",
   "https://archive.org/details/poems01harp",
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69248",
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   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-full-text-1895",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100488369",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-idylls-of-the-bible-1901",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100319488",
   "https://archive.org/details/historyofafrican00payn",
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   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_sketches-of-southern-life-1872",
   "https://archive.org/details/25th-annual-report-of-the-board-of-managers-of-the-home-etc",
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  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
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  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
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 "stats": {
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "“Build me a house,” said the Master,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“But not on the shifting sand,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Mid the wreck and roar of tempests,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A house that will firmly stand.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“I will bring thee windows of agates,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And gates of carbuncles bright,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And thy fairest courts and portals",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall be filled with love and light.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Thou shalt build with fadeless rubies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All fashioned around the throne,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A house that shall last forever,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With Christ as the cornerstone.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“It shall be a royal mansion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A fair and beautiful thing,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It will be the presence-chamber",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of thy Saviour, Lord and King.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Thy house shall be bound with pinions",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To mansions of rest above,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But grace shall forge all the fetters",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the links and cords of love.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Thou shalt be free in this mansion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From sorrow and pain of heart,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For the peace of God shall enter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And never again depart.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}