“

I want a bedroom near the sky, an astrologer’s cave

Where I can fashion eclogues that are chaste and grave.

Dreaming, I’ll hear the wind in the steeples close by

Sweep the solemn hymns away. I’ll spy

On factories from my attic window, resting my chin

In both hands, drinking in the songs, the din.

I’ll see chimneys and steeples, those masts of the city,

And the huge sky that makes us dream of eternity.

How sweet to watch the birth of the star in the still-blue

Sky, through mist; the lamp burning anew

At the window; rivers of coal climbing the firmament

And the moon pouring out its pale enchantment.

I’ll see the spring, the summer and the fall

And when winter casts its monotonous pall

Of snow, I’ll draw the blinds and curtains tight

And build my magic palaces in the night;

Then dream of gardens, of bluish horizons,

Of jets of water weeping in alabaster basins,

Of kisses, of birds singing at dawn and at nightfall,

Of all that’s most childish in our pastoral.

When the storm rattles my windowpane

I’ll stay hunched at my desk, it will roar in vain

For I’ll have plunged deep inside the thrill

Of conjuring spring with the force of my will,

Coaxing the sun from my heart, and building here

Out of my fiery thoughts, a tepid atmosphere.

—  JOHN ASHBERY