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Alfred Austin - The Wind Speaks
Work rating: Low

``In the depth of Night, on the heights of Day,
 Would you know where I rest or roam?
 In vain will you search, for I nowhere stay,
 And the Universe is my home.

 ``When you think to descry on the craggy steep
 My skirts as I mount and flee
 From the wrecks I have wrought, I am sound asleep
 In the cradles rocked by the sea.

  ``There is never an eye that hath seen my helm,
 Though I traverse the ocean`s face;
 There is never a foot that hath trod my Realm,
 Or can guide to my dwelling—place.

 ``Then how will you challenge my Will and me,
 Or, how what I do, arraign?
 Bewail as you may, I alone am free,
 You can neither imprison nor chain.

 ``Your dungeons clang on the blood—red hand,
 And fetter the monster`s claw.
 If I merge `neath the wave, if I level on land,
 It is that my will is law.

 ``You have cleared the main of the corsair`s keel,
 And the forest of outlaws` tread;
 Your hounds follow swift on the felon`s heel,
 And the trail of the ravisher fled.

 ``But when I harry the woods, or scour
 The furrows of foam for prey,
 The blushing bloom of the Spring deflower,
 Or outrage the buds of May,

 ``Where, where are they that can hunt me down,
 Or catch up my tacking sail,
 Can bridle my lust with scourge or frown,
 As I speed me away on the gale?

 ``I heed no menace, I hark no prayer
 And, if I desire, I sate:
 `Tis but when I want not that I spare,
 But neither from love nor hate.

 ``Let the feeble falter in their intent,
 Or, slaking it, feel remorse.
 Though I never refrain, I never repent
 I am nothing but Will and Force.

 ``The flocks of the wandering waves I hold
 In the hollow of my hand,
 And I let them loose, like a huddled fold,
 And with them I flood the land;

 ``Till they swirl round villages, hamlets, thorpes,
 As the cottagers flee for life:
 Then I fling the fisherman`s flaccid corpse
 At the feet of the fisherman`s wife.

 ``I blow from the shore as the surges swell,
 And the drenched barque strains for port,
 But heareth in vain the lighthouse bell
 And the guns of the hailing fort.

 ``Where speedeth the horseman o`er sand or veldt
 That boasteth a seat like mine?
 I ride without stirrup, or bit, or belt,
 On the back of the bounding brine.

 ``And it rears and plunges, it chafes and foams,
 But I am its master still,
 And its mettle I tame till it halts or roams
 At whatever pace I will.

 ``I shatter the stubborn oak, and blanch
 The leaves of the poplar tree,
 And sweep all the chords of bough and branch,
 Till I make them sound like the sea.

 ``O, where is there music like to mine,
 When I muster my breath and roll
 Through the organ pipes of the mountain pine,
 Till they fill and affright the soul?

 ``Then smoothly and softly, `twixt shore and shore,
 I float on the dreaming mere;
 And motionless then you suspend your oar,
 And listen, but cannot hear.

 ``For I have crept to the water`s edge,
 And deep under reed—mace crest
 Am faintly fanning the seeded sedge,
 Or rocking the cygnet`s nest.

 ``If I strip the maidenly birches bare
 Of their dainty transparent dress,
 It is that their limbs may look more fair
 In their innocent nakedness.

 ``I weave from the leaves of the beech—capped steep
 A coverlet gold and red,
 And under its quiet warmth I creep,
 And sleep till the snows are fled.

 ``Then I wake, and around the maiden`s feet
 I flutter each fringe and fold,
 And playfully ripple the vestal pleat
 That hints of her perfect mould.

 ``I linger round dimpled throat and mouth,
 Till her warm lips fall apart,
 And with the breath of the scented south
 Keep thawing her chaste cold heart.

 ``Then she harks to the note of the nightingale
 And the coo of the mated dove,
 And murmurs the words of the poet`s tale,
 Till the whole of her life is Love.

 ``I unlimber the thunder, I aim the bolt,
 Till the forest ranks waver and quail,
 Then hurl down the hill and over the holt
 My squadrons of glittering hail.

 ``I soar where no skylark mounts and sings,
 But the heavenly anthems swell,
 And fan with the force of my demon wings
 The furnace of nethermost Hell.

 ``Like the Soul of Man, like God`s Word and Will,
 Whence I come and whither I go,
 And where I abide when my voice is still,
 You know not, and never shall know.``
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