THE WARRIOR WIND

Once more the wind leaps from the sullen land

With his old battle-cry.

A tree bends darkly where the wall looms high;

Its tortured branches, like a grisly hand,

Clutch at the sky.

Grey towers rise from gloom and underneath —

Black-barred and strong —

The snarling windows guard their ancient wrong;

But the mad wind shakes them, hissing through his teeth

A battle song.

O bitter is the challenge that he flings

At bars and bolts and keys.

Torn with the cries of vanished centuries

And curses hurled at long-forgotten kings

Beyond dim seas.

The wind alone, of all the gods of old,

Men could not chain.

O wild wind, brother to my wrath and pain,

Like you, within a restless heart I hold

A hurricane.

The wind has known the dungeons of the past

Knows all that are;

And in due time will strew their dust afar,

And singing, he will shout their doom at last

To a laughing star.

O cleansing warrior wind, stronger than death,

Wiser than men may know;

O smite these stubborn walls and lay them low,

Uproot and rend them with your mighty breath —

Blow, wild wind, blow!