Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of
Our House, July 10, 1666
by Anne Bradstreet
Feature Menu
Introducing the Poem
Literary Focus: The Plain Style
Reading Skills: Analyzing Text
Structures: Inversion
Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of
Our House, July 10, 1666
by Anne Bradstreet
Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of
Our House, July 10, 1666
by Anne Bradstreet
We increase our possessions only to the
enlargement of our anxieties.
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)
Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of
Our House, July 10, 1666
by Anne Bradstreet
In this poem, the speaker awakens to shouts of
“Fire!”
• She escapes from her burning
house and then watches the
flames consume it.
• The shock of losing her house
causes her to reflect on what
truly matters to her.
[End of Section]
Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of
Our House, July 10, 1666
Literary Focus: The Plain Style
Puritan writers favored the plain style—a way of
writing that stresses
• simplicity
• clarity of expression
• the use of everyday words
Puritan writings may now seem
hard to read, but to readers in
the 1600s, they sounded simple
and direct.
Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of
Our House, July 10, 1666
Literary Focus: The Plain Style
Although Bradstreet uses figurative language in her
poetry, her writing is still influenced by strong,
simple Puritan style and diction.
“Here stood that trunk, and there
that chest,
There lay that store I counted best.”
[End of Section]
Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of
Our House, July 10, 1666
Reading Skills: Analyzing Text Structures: Inversion
Inversion is the reversal of the normal word
order in a sentence or phrase.
• Poets often use inversion to accommodate the
demands of meter and rhyme.
Normal order
My pleasant things lie in ashes,
And I shall behold them no more.
Inversion
“My pleasant things in ashes lie,
And them behold no more shall I.”
[End of Section]