Vision
Jessie Belle Rittenhouse
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Background
Background
Jessie Belle Rittenhouse was an American literary critic, compiler of anthologies, and poet. She graduated from Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, New York in 1890 and then went on to teach at a school in Cairo, Illinois and Grand Haven, Michigan. Rittenhouse was born in Mount Morris, New York on December 8, 1869 and died in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan on September 28, 1948.
Poem and Annotations
Poem and Annotations
I came to the mountains for beauty,And I find here the toiling folk,On sparse little farms in the valleys,Wearing their days like a yoke.
White clouds fill the valleys at morning;They are round like great billows at sea,And roll themselves up to the hill-tops,Still round as great billows can be.
The mists fill the valleys at evening;They are blue as the smoke in the fall,And spread all the hills with a tenuous scarfThat touches the hills not at all.
These lone folk have looked on them daily.Yet I see in their faces no light;Oh, how can I show them the mountainsThat are round them by day and by night!
White clouds fill the valleys at morning;They are round like great billows at sea,And roll themselves up to the hill-tops,Still round as great billows can be.
The mists fill the valleys at evening;They are blue as the smoke in the fall,And spread all the hills with a tenuous scarfThat touches the hills not at all.
These lone folk have looked on them daily.Yet I see in their faces no light;Oh, how can I show them the mountainsThat are round them by day and by night!
Analysis
Analysis
"Vision" is a poem about how perspective is effected by exposure. In this poem, Rittenhouse describes a beautiful mountainous valley with billowing clouds and blue mist. She also describes those living there and how they are not at all filled with the same awe and wonder as the speaker in the poem. The natives of that valley see those mountains every day and night. It is their normal. When they see a valley, they probably think of all the work that comes along with farming there rather than the beauty that the speaker sees. This is why listening to others' perspectives is so important to understanding the world around them. this poem has a tone of amazement and puzzlement.
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