WHAT THE WIND SAID

‘ I muse to-day, in a listless way,

In the gleam of a summer land;

I close my eyes as a lover may

At the touch of his sweetheart's hand,

And I hear these things in the whisperings

Of the zephyrs round me fanned':—

I am the Wind, and I rule mankind,

And I hold a sovereign reign

Over the lands, as God designed,

And the waters they contain:

Lo! the bound of the wide world round

Falleth in my domain!

I was born on a stormy morn

In a kingdom walled with snow,

Whose crystal cities laugh to scorn

The proudest the world can show;

And the daylight's glare is frozen there

In the breath of the blasts that blow.

Life to me was a jubilee

From the first of my youthful days:

Clinking my icy toys with glee —

Playing my childish plays;

Filling my hands with the silver sands

To scatter a thousand ways:

Chasing the flakes that the Polar shakes

From his shaggy coat of white,

Or hunting the trace of the track he makes

And sweeping it from sight,

As he turned to glare from the slippery stair

Of the iceberg's farthest height.

Till I grew so strong that I strayed ere long

From my home of ice and chill;

With an eager heart and a merry song

I traveled the snows until

I heard the thaws in the ice-crag's jaws

Crunched with a hungry will;

And the angry crash of the waves that dash

Themselves on the jagged shore

Where the splintered masts of the ice-wrecks flash,

And the frightened breakers roar

In wild unrest on the ocean's breast

For a thousand leagues or more.

And the grand old sea invited me

With a million beckoning hands,

And I spread my wings for a flight as free

As ever a sailor plans

When his thoughts are wild and his heart beguiled

With the dreams of foreign lands.

I passed a ship on its homeward trip,

With a weary and toil-worn crew;

And I kissed their flag with a welcome lip,

And so glad a gale I blew

That the sailors quaffed their grog and laughed

At the work I made them do.

I drifted by where sea-groves lie

Like brides in the fond caress

Of the warm sunshine and the tender sky —

Where the ocean, passionless

And tranquil, lies like a child whose eyes

Are blurred with drowsiness.

I drank the air and the perfume there,

And bathed in a fountain's spray;

And I smoothed the wings and the plumage rare

Of a bird for his roundelay,

And fluttered a rag from a signal-crag

For a wretched castaway.

With a sea-gull resting on my breast,

I launched on a madder flight:

And I lashed the waves to a wild unrest,

And howled with a fierce delight

Till the daylight slept; and I wailed and wept

Like a fretful babe all night.

For I heard the boom of a gun strike doom;

And the gleam of a blood-red star

Glared at me through the mirk and gloom

From the lighthouse tower afar;

And I held my breath at the shriek of death

That came from the harbor bar.

For I am the Wind, and I rule mankind,

And I hold a sovereign reign

Over the lands, as God designed,

And the waters they contain:

Lo! the bound of the wide world round

Falleth in my domain!

I journeyed on, when the night was gone,

O'er a coast of oak and pine;

And I followed a path that a stream had drawn

Through a land of vale and vine,

And here and there was a village fair

In a nest of shade and shine.

I passed o'er lakes where the sunshine shakes

And shivers his golden lance

On the glittering shield of the wave that breaks

Where the fish-boats dip and dance,

And the trader sails where the mist unveils

The glory of old romance.

I joyed to stand where the jeweled hand

Of the maiden-morning lies

On the tawny brow of the mountain-land.

Where the eagle shrieks and cries,

And holds his throne to himself alone

From the light of human eyes.

Adown deep glades where the forest shades

Are dim as the dusk of day —

Where only the foot of the wild beast wades,

Or the Indian dares to stray,

As the blacksnakes glide through the reeds and hide

In the swamp-depths grim and gray.

And I turned and fled from the place of dread

To the far-off haunts of men.

“In the city's heart is rest,” I said,—

But I found it not, and when

I saw but care and vice reign there

I was filled with wrath again:

And I blew a spark in the midnight dark

Till it flashed to an angry flame

And scarred the sky with a lurid mark

As red as the blush of shame:

And a hint of hell was the dying yell

That up from the ruins came.

The bells went wild, and the black smoke piled

Its pillars against the night,

Till I gathered them, like flocks defiled,

And scattered them left and right,

While the holocaust's red tresses tossed

As a maddened Fury's might.

“Ye overthrown!” did I jeer and groan —

“Ho! who is your master?— say!—

Ye shapes that writhe in the slag and moan

Your slow-charred souls away —

Ye worse than worst of things accurst —

Ye dead leaves of a day!”

I am the Wind, and I rule mankind,

And I hold a sovereign reign

Over the lands, as God designed,

And the waters they contain:

Lo! the bound of the wide world round

Falleth in my domain!

‘ I wake, as one from a dream half done,

And gaze with a dazzled eye

On an autumn leaf like a scrap of sun

That the wind goes whirling by,

While afar I hear, with a chill of fear,

The winter storm-king sigh.’