The Wind In The Pines

I.

Not till the wildman wind is shrill,
Howling upon the hill
In every wolfish tree, whose boisterous boughs,
Like desperate arms, gesture and beat the night,
And down huge clouds, in chasms of stormy white
The frightened moon hurries above the house,
Shall I lie down; and, deep,
Letting the mad wind keep
Its shouting revel round me, fall asleep.


II.

Not till its dark halloo is hushed,
And where wild waters rushed,
Like some hoofed terror underneath its whip
And spur of foam, remains
A ghostly glass, hill-framed; whereover stains
Of moony mists and rains,
And stealthy starbeams, like vague specters, slip;
Shall I, with thoughts that take
Unto themselves the ache
Of silence as a sound, from sleep awake.

The wind that breathes of columbines
And celandines that crowd the rocks;
That shakes the balsam of the pines
With laughter from his airy locks,
Stops at my city door and knocks.

He calls me far a-forest, where
The twin-leaf and the blood-root bloom;
And, circled by the amber air,
Life sits with beauty and perfume
Weaving the new web of her loom.

He calls me where the waters run
Through fronding ferns where wades the hern;
And, sparkling in the equal sun,
Song leans above her brimming urn,
And dreams the dreams that love shall learn.

The wind has summoned, and I go:
To read God's meaning in each line
The wildflowers write; and, walking slow,
God's purpose, of which song is sign,
The wind's great, gusty hand in mine.

I.

I have heard the wind on a winter's night,
When the snow-cold moon looked icily through
My window's flickering firelight,
Where the frost his witchery drew:
I have heard the wind on a winter's night,
Wandering ways that were frozen white,
Wail in my chimney-flue:
And its voice was the voice, so it seemed to me,
The voice of the world's vast misery.

II.

I have heard the wind on a night of spring,
When the leaves unclasped their girdles of gold,
And the bird on the bough sang slumbering,
In the lilac's fragrant fold:
I have heard the wind on a night of spring,
Shaking the musk from its dewy wing,
Sigh in my garden old:
And it seemed that it said, as it sighed above,
"I am the voice of the Earth's great love."

III.

The wind that breathes of columbines
And celandines that crowd the rocks;
That shakes the balsam of the pines
With laughter from his airy locks,
Stops at my city door and knocks.

He calls me far a-forest, where
The twin-leaf and the blood-root bloom;
And, circled by the amber air,
Life sits with beauty and perfume
Weaving the new web of her loom.

He calls me where the waters run
Through fronding ferns where wades the hern;
And, sparkling in the equal sun,
Song leans above her brimming urn,
And dreams the dreams that love shall learn.

The wind has summoned, and I go:
To read God's meaning in each line
The wildflowers write; and, walking slow,
God's purpose, of which song is sign, -
The wind's great, gusty hand in mine.

The ways of the wind are eerie
And I love them all,
The blithe, the mad, and the dreary,
Spring, Winter, and Fall.

When it tells to the waiting crocus
Its beak to show,
And hangs on the wayside locust
Bloom-bunches of snow.

When it comes like a balmy blessing
From the musky wood,
The half-grown roses caressing
Till their cheeks show blood.

When it roars in the Autumn season,
And whines with rain
Or sleet like a mind without reason,
Or a soul in pain.

When the wood-ways once so spicy
With bud and bloom
Are desolate, sear, and icy
As the icy tomb.

When the wild owl crouched and frowsy
In the rotten tree
Wails dolorous, cold, and drowsy,
His shuddering melody.

Then I love to sit in Decemb...

From the hills and far away
All the long, warm summer day
Comes the wind and seems to say:

"Come, oh, come! and let us go
Where the meadows bend and blow,
Waving with the white-tops' snow.

"'Neath the hyssop-colored sky
'Mid the meadows we will lie
Watching the white clouds roll by;

"While your hair my hands shall press
With a cooling tenderness
Till your grief grows less and less.

"Come, oh, come! and let us roam
Where the rock-cut waters comb
Flowing crystal into foam.

"' Under trees whose trunks are brown,
On the banks that violets crown,
We will watch the fish flash down;

"While your ear my voice shall soothe
With a whisper soft and smooth
Till your care shall wax uncouth.

"Come! where fore...