Hand in Hand/Wind Music and the Child

by Alice MacDonald Kipling

Wind-Music and the Child

A TUNE that keeps no earthly time or measure,
Rising and falling at the wind's wild pleasure;
Now quick in haste, now slow in languid leisure.

But always very musically sweet
And always sad. No little childish feet
To its soft cadence dance along the street;

No little childish voice breaks into singing,
By a glad impulse, like a wild bird flinging
An echo to the sound the wind is bringing.

Rather the child, altho' scarce knowing why,
Hearing this music, passes slowly by,
And breathes its fear and wonder in a sigh.