Lines 1-7

Sag Harbor, mentioned in the first line of “View,” is a town at the end of Long Island, New York, not far from where Bell grew up. It has a long history as a seaport, primarily for whaling vessels, with European settlers arriving in the late 1600s. The village is a well-known tourist destination. In the beginning lines of this poem, the speaker presents a character (referred to as “you”) who is interested, like many tourists, in a view of the water. The narrator explains that the trees that come between “you” and the harbor are not actually blocking the view, because they are made of water themselves. In fact, both the leaves of the trees and the air are said to be composed mainly of water. Even “the distance, as the bird flies or the squirrel scampers,” is identified as something composed of water.

Lines 8-10