Alfred Austin - The Wind SpeaksAlfred Austin - The Wind Speaks
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``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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