It opened at a touch. I had expected to look out on Mr. Baker’s hen-yard; but I didn’t. There was instead a wide stretch of tumbling seas—splendid, perilous seas, gray and fierce, with glints of silver at the horizon, and great waves racing inland and breaking in sheets of foam below! As I leaned out and drew deep breaths of salty, foamy air, I saw a dim sweep of coast through the spray.
The moving waters at their priest-like task
Of pure ablution
were plain enough; but were those “human shores” or the forlorn coasts of faery-land?
“Please, Miss, the butcher,” called Maggie’s voice behind me, and I shut the window and ran down-stairs as though I had never heard of tired muscles or heart. When I got back to blue-books, it was amazing how brilliantly the students were writing.
When I next opened the casement the sea was moony-calm, and a nightingale was singing outside in balm-laden air. Mr. Baker’s hen-yard, viewed from the next window, never varied, but let me tell you that out of a magic casement one does not see the same sight twice. I did not let myself open it often. When I was leaning from it I forgot the passage of time, and you can’t imagine how “jobs” crowded last winter. But if, while I worked, I left a crack ajar, and this grew to be rather a habit, the air that came in kept me fresh and fit, so that I have never carried my work so easily.
One day—inside, I remember, it was bleak winter twilight—there was an island rising from the sea. The tremulous waters were tinged with the first promise of dawn. A planet on the horizon glowed red. Though the heavens elsewhere were clear, the summit of the mountain isle was veiled in drifting mists, like tears; yet behind the mists the sun seemed to be shining on level reaches of springlike verdure, which caught the longing of the heart, yet stilled all longing with an exceeding peace. As the dawn brightened, I could discern two figures on the low sands at the base of the hill, and presently, speeding across the waters faster than flight of bird, appeared a spark, glowing as though the planet had left the sky. Faint shining grew at sides and center, till I could see the vesture and the two wings, serving as sails, of an angel whose face was as the morning star. If you had only been there! Of the blessed folk who filled the ship, some looked affrighted, some exceeding glad; and though I could not clearly hear the chant they sang, one voice sweet above the rest, I knew it to be a song of deliverance. Do you remember our Dante readings under the pines? All that day there was absolution in the air.
But there was none on that other day when sky and sea blazed blue fire, thunder-caps lay pearled in the west, and a high-pooped ship dropped anchor beneath my window. Sea-weary serving-folk in medieval garb, went ashore by ones and twos, while a knight in green array and a most fair lady lay talking on the deck. Now and again he touched a harp, with skill, I thought, seeking languidly to please her; but she looked on him in distaste. Then a page brought them liquid from a crystal flask of curious fashioning, and the two drank thirstily, for it was hot. Then they gazed startled on each other with changed eyes. The thunder-caps rolled up, and I heard them speak in troubled, riddling words of “aimer” and “la mer,” and I shut the window lest I prove indiscreet. Besides, the air was stifling.
It was not always sea that greeted me. You can imagine the pleasure of opening in harsh March weather on the cool depths of a summer forest, where the angel face of a sleeping girl in white nun’s habit made a sunshine in the shade! My worries rolled away as I watched joyous wood-folk—fauns, satyrs, and fair hamadryads—caper and dance through the forest, and saw them, awestruck at her sweet holiness, bend their knees before her, grinning gently, and crown her with garlands. In that same wood, when the moon was risen, I saw star-crossed lovers misled by faery pranks, and the queen of faery herself beguiled. But the next evening my window gave on a blasted, treeless heath, where weird women lay in wait for two doomed soldiers.
One of the best things I got from the window was a glimpse of Utopia. Several of us had spent the day trying to organize relief in a mill town where a three-cornered strike was going on, and the regular unions, the employers, and the I. W. W. were involved in a hideous wrangle-tangle. It was worse than any of our old settlement experiences. I came back sick at heart and touched the casement spring, afraid that I couldn’t see out for the smart in my eyes. But there lay Utopia before me. Yes, dear, Utopia.