Sympathy

As one within a moated tower,
    I lived my life alone;
And dreamed not other granges’ dower,
    Nor ways unlike mine own.
I thought I loved. But all alone
    As one within a moated tower
I lived. Nor truly knew
    One other mortal fortune’s hour.
As one within a moated tower,
    One fate alone I knew.
Who hears afar the break of day
    Before the silvered air
Reveals her hooded presence gray,
    And she, herself, is there?
I know not how, but now I see
    The road, the plain, the pluming tree,
The carter on the wain.
    On my horizon wakes a star.
The distant hillsides wrinkled far
    Fold many hearts’ domain.
On one the fire-worn forests sweep,
    Above a purple mountain-keep
And soar to domes of snow.
    One heart has swarded fountains deep
Where water-lilies blow:
    And one, a cheerful house and yard,
With curtains at the pane,
    Board-walks down lawns all clover-starred,
And full-fold fields of grain.
    As one within a moated tower
I lived my life alone;
    And dreamed not other granges’ dower
Nor ways unlike mine own.
    But now the salt-chased seas uncurled
And mountains trooped with pine
    Are mine. I look on all the world
And all the world is mine.
Sympathy

by Edith Franklin Wyatt, 1913
