Anne Whitney (02 Sep 1821 – 23 Jan 1915 | Watertown MA – Boston MA) poet, sculptor ,active advocate for forest conservation, women’s rights, abolition of slavery, and equal education for African-Americans.

Gray strength of years! Know you the land? Three against one! I dreamed an angel,

Angel twice, a stately dream. Largess from seven-fold heavens, descend on all who

toil for Beauty! O Fair mistrust of earth’s more solid shows! No slight caprice rules

thee – and for that, thou art Beauty, and thy name transcends all praise. Along yon

soft tumultuousness, the Dawn reaches a glowing hand, and the mute world thrills

back to life. You are welcome, world, to censure and carp: sing and croak yourselves

hoarse if you will. Seem I beyond thy reach of eye or lip, mailed in the arrogance of

life? How darkly in the far silence of my pitiless prison-walls, through night-watches

I sit. Oh wondrous delight of a window a fair three stories high, its limitless boon of

sky! A wink, pale pink — so stars come, one by one. Such is Nature’s constant way.

Whitney, Anne. Poems. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1859. https://archive.org/details/cu31924022226702/page/n6/mode/1up