From a Purple Hill

Distances are purple.
It’s something to do with the air –
The way it piles up between your eyes and the far hills,
Accumulating violet as it goes –
Something like that.  I never studied eyes.
But I know purple distances, and how
They speak a fairy story to the soul
Which the wise mind, all crusted from its work,
Cannot believe, nor ever set aside.

Here it isn’t purple.  Not from here, it isn’t.
But on that purple hill – who knows? –
Some other watcher may be watching me,
And may see magic where I nothing see.