From my high window the outlooker sees
The whole wide southern sky,
Fort Hill is in the distance smiling green,
With ordinary houses thick between,
And scanty passers by.

Our street is flat, ungraded, little used,
The sidewalks grown with grass,
And just across, a fenceless open lot,
Covered with ash-heaps, where the sun shines hot
On bits of broken glass.

It's hard on Nature, blotting her fair face
With such discourteous deeds,
But one short season gives her time enough
To softly cover up the outlines rough
With merciful thick weeds.

Then numerous most limited back-yards,
One thick with fruit trees, overgrown with vines,
But most of them are rather bare and small,
With board and picket fences, running all
In parallel straight lines.

Hardly a brilliant prospect you will think,
The common houses, scanty passers by,
Bare lot thick-strown with cinder-heaps and shards,
And small monotonous township of back-yards —
Stop — you forget the sky!