Poems (Chandler)/Through a Window

by Louise Chandler Moulton

THROUGH A WINDOW.

LIE here at rest in my chamber,
 And look through the window again,
With eyes that are changed since the old time,
 And the sting of an exquisite pain.

'Tis not much that I see for a picture,
 Through boughs that are green with spring,—
A barn with its roof gray and mossy,
 And above it a bird on the wing;

Or, lifting my head a thought higher,
 Some hills and a village I know,
And over it all the blue heaven,
 With a white cloud floating below.

Ah! once the roof was a prison,
 My mind and the sky were free,
My thoughts with the birds went flying,
 And my hopes were a heaven to me.

Now I come from the limitless distance
 Where I followed my youth's wild will,
Where they press the wine of delusion
 That you drink and are thirsty still;

And I know why the bird with the springtime
 To the gnarled old tree comes back,—
He has tried the south and the summer,
 He has felt what the sweet things lack.

So I come with a sad contentment,
 With eyes that are changed I see:
The roof means peace, not a prison,
 And heaven smiles down on me.