THE WINDS

In these green fields, in this green spring,

In this green world of burning sweet

That drives its sour from everything

And burns the Arctic with new heat,

That seems so slow and flies so fleet

On half-seen wing;

In this green world the birds are all

With motion mad, are wild with song;

The grass leaps like a sudden wall

Flung up against a foe that long

Strode round and wrought his frosty wrong.

The bright winds call,

The bright winds answer; the clouds rise

White from the grave, shaking their head,

Strewing the grave-clothes through the skies,

In languid drifting shadow shed

Upon the fields where, slowly spread,

Each shadow dies.

In every wood is green and gold,

The unbridged river runs all green

With queenly swan-clouds floating bold

Down to the mill's swift guillotine.

Beyond the mill each murdered queen

Floats white and cold.

— If I could rise up in a cloud

And look down on the new earth in flight,

Shadow-like cast my thought's thin shroud

Back upon these fields of light;

And hear the winds of day and night

Meet, singing loud!