Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


MOUNTAIN by WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING (1817-1901)

First Line: ONCE WE BUILT OUR FORTRESS

And once we built our fortress where you see
Yon group of spruce-trees sidewise on the line
Where the horizon to the eastward bounds,-
A point selected by sagacious art,
Where all at once we viewed the Vermont hills,
And the long outlines of the mountain-ridge,
Ever renewing, changeful every hour;
And, sunk below us in that lowland world,
The lone Farm-steading where the bleaching cloth,
Small spot of white, lay out upon the lawn;
Behind, smooth walls of rock, and trees each side,
Sifting the blast two ways; and on the south
Our wigwam opened, showing in its length
That flattened hay-stack or repeated hill,-
Wachusett!




Home: PoetryExplorer.net