Poems (Whitney)/The prospect

by Anne Whitney

THE PROSPECT.

O wondrous delight of a window
 A fair three stories high,
With its view to the southward and west,
 And its limitless boon of sky!

With its murmur and coo of pigeons,
 Settling upon the roof—
And a distant stir that betokens
 A world that is well aloof!

And here when the heavens are azure,
 And no dunce that you know is near
To hint at a weather-breeder,
 In the magical atmosphere;

When swallows on cleaving pinions,
 Disdaining the earth and you,
Follow the hunt far up
 In the calm, embosoming blue;

Or when in the west mount Prospect
 Indues its purple; and ah!
When my planet looks down on the mill-stream
 My porphyro-genita;

I look with a half enchantment
 Over regions that wait renown,
The triple crest of Waltham,
 And vales of Watertown;

Over orchard, and woodland, and meadow,
 Where the Beaver its raving stills,
O'er fair little ups and downs
 To the mighty, girdling hills,

What silence of expectation—
 What dreaming on the to-come,
When up through these valleys and hillsides
 Yon hive shall swarm and hum!

For yonder, beyond our paling
 Of elm, and ash, and oak,
Hangs soft on the purple distance
 A visible, brooding smoke;

There, masked in brick, Trimountain
 Rears somewhat snobbish and chill,
But returns in its way the salute
 Of oak-crowned Meetinus hill

But here, while I may, I am laughing.
 To think how pleasant a thing,
To fly to this skiey quiet,
 And freshen a ruffled wing.

My poverty and its vexations
 Vanish and leave me free:—
From Cushing's, inclusive, eastward
 To the feet of the journeying sea;

From the hither wall of Barnard
 To Knobscot's blue recess—
Through lands of Locke to the south
 'With acres more or less,

In the yield of all farms and woodlands,
 We, Robin and I, go shares;
And our landlords are sunbeams and waters,
 And grudge us no repairs.

Ah world, if you yet must have me,
 Sing me a better strain,
Or hold me a moment, I pray,
 Lightly, and loose me again.