The Star-splitter by Robert Frost : The Poetry Foundation [poem] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover

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‎"You know Orion always comes up sideways. / Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains, / And rising on his hands, he looks in on me / Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something

"You know Orion always comes up sideways.

Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,

And rising on his hands, he looks in on me

Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something

I should have done by daylight, and indeed,

After the ground is frozen, I should have done

Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful

Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney

To make fun of my way of doing things,

Or else fun of Orion's having caught me.

Has a man, I should like to ask, no rights

And I love the simplicity of burning down of the home to buy a telescope -

 The strongest thing that's given us to see with's
A telescope. Someone in every town
Seems to me owes... it to the town to keep one.
In Littleton it may as well be me."

And the description of the neighborhood - community fits every place:

In Littleton it may as well be me."
After such loose talk it was no surprise
When he did what he did and burned his house down.

Mean laughter went about the town that day
To let him know we weren't the least imposed on,
And he could wait—we'd see to him tomorrow.
But the first thing next morning we reflected
If one by one we counted people out
For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long