XVII

The wind that drives the fine dry sand

Across the strand:

The sad wind spinning arabesques

With a wrinkled hand.

Labyrinths of shifting sand,

The dancing dunes!

I will arise and run with the sand,

And gather it greedily in my hand:

I will wriggle like a long yellow snake over the beaches.

I will lie curled up, sleeping,

And the wind shall chase me

Far inland.

My breath is the music of the mad wind;

Shrill piping, stamping of drunken feet,

The fluttering, tattered broidery flung

Over the dunes’ steep escarpments.

The fine dry sand that whistles

Down the long low beaches.