No, his exit by the gate
Will not leave the wind ajar;
He will go when it is late
With a misty star.
One will call, he cannot see;
One will call, he will not hear;
He will take no company
Nor a hope or fear.
We shall smile who loved him so--
They who gave him hate will weep;
But for us the winds will blow
Pulsing through his sleep.
Clouded with snow
The cold winds blow,
And shrill on leafless bough
The robin with its burning breast
Alone sings now.
The rayless sun,
Day's journey done,
Sheds its last ebbing light
On fields in leagues of beauty spread
Unearthly white.
Thick draws the dark,
And spark by spark,
The frost-fires kindle, and soon
Over that sea of frozen foam
Floats the white moon.
The going of the glade-boat
Is like water flowing;
Like water flowing
Through the green saw-grass,
Under the rainbows;
Under the rainbows
That are like birds,
Turning, bedizened,
While the wind still whistles
As kildeer do,
When they rise
At the red turban
Of the boatman.
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
This is how the wind shifts:
Like the thoughts of an old human,
Who still thinks eagerly
And despairingly.
The wind shifts like this:
Like a human without illusions,
Who still feels irrational things within her.
The wind shifts like this:
Like humans approaching proudly,
Like humans approaching angrily.
This is how the wind shifts:
Like a human, heavy and heavy,
Who does not care.
My candle burned alone in an immense valley.
Beams of the huge night converged upon it,
Until the wind blew.
Then beams of the huge night
Converged upon its image,
Until the wind blew.
The white cock’s tail
Tosses in the wind.
The turkey-cock’s tail
Glitters in the sun.
Water in the fields.
The wind pours down.
The feathers flare
And bluster in the wind.
Remus, blow your horn!
I’m ploughing on Sunday,
Ploughing North America.
Blow your horn!
Tum-ti-tum,
Ti-tum-tum-tum!
The turkey-cock’s tail
Spreads to the sun.
If I were gusty April now,
How I would blow at laughing Rose;
I'd make her ribbons slip their knots,
And all her hair come loose.
If I were merry April now,
How I would pelt her cheeks with showers;
I'd make carnations, rich and warm,
Of her vermilion flowers.
Since she will laugh in April's face,
No matter how he rains or blows--
Then O that I wild April were,
To play with laughing Rose.
Hands, do what you're bid;
Bring the balloon of the mind
That bellies and drags in the wind
Into its narrow shed.
Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water's roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool's triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind?
Has no one said those daring
Kind eyes should be more learn'd?
Or warned you how despairing
The moths are when they are burned,
As I came over Windy Gap
They threw a halfpenny into my cap,
For I am running to Paradise;
And all that I need do is to wish
And somebody puts his hand in the dish
To throw me a bit of salted fish:
And there the king is but as the beggar.
My brother Mourteen is worn out
With skelping his big brawling lout,
And I am running to Paradise;
A poor life do what he can,
And though he keep a dog and a gun,
A serving maid and a serving man:
And there the king is but as the beggar.
Poor men have grown to be rich men,
And rich men grown to be poor again,
I ASKED for sunlight and a long, long day
To build my little home.
Setting an altar where my heart might lay
Fire ere the god should come.
I built my walls with patient carefulness,
Secure and small, nor knew
A wild wind straying from the wilderness
Had sought their shelter too.
My heart woke up in storms, my shelter sweet
In ruins fell apart.
Once more I go by cruel ways to meet
The ordeal of the heart.