Ella Wheeler Wilcox

My Comrade

Out from my window westward 
I turn full oft my face; 
But the mountains rebuke the vision 
That would encompass space; 
They lift their lofty foreheads 
To the kiss of the clouds above, 
And ask, ”With all our glory, 
Can we not win your love?”

I answer, ”No, oh mountains! 
I see that you are grand; 
But you have not the breadth and beauty 
Of the fields in my own land; 
You narrow my range of vision 
And you even shut from me 
The voice of my old comrade, 
The West Wind wild and free.”

But to-day I climbed the mountains 
On the back of a snow-white steed, 
And the West Wind came to greet me-- 
He flew on the wings of speed. 
His charger, and mine that bore me, 
Went gaily neck to neck, 
Till the town in the valley belkow us 
Looked like a small, dark speck.

And oh! what tales he whispered 
As he rode there by me, 
Of friends whose smiling faces 
I am so soon to see. 
And the mountains frowned in anger, 
Because I balked their spite, 
And met my old-time comrade 
There on their very height;

But I laughed up in their faces, 
As I rode slowly back, 
While the Wind went faster and faster, 
Like a race-horse on the track.