Not Understood and Other Poems/The Winds

by Thomas Bracken

 

THE WINDS.

 

WHO has not heard the sighing,
  And the moaning, and the crying,
As of troubled spirits flying
  Through the winds, through the winds,
On some dreary winter’s night,
When the cat-eyed owl, in fright,
From its hiding place takes flight,
  Through the winds, through the winds?
  And the curlews scream aloud,
  And each quaintly fashioned cloud
  Is swept o’er Earth’s gloomy shroud
    By the winds, by the winds;
    Oh, there’s something sad yet sweet about those
winds.

For they carry us back on Fancy’s track
  O’er the deep dark ocean’s foam;
And we mingle again with the loving train,
  In our childhood’s happy home;
Each fond kind face, in the dear old place,
  Smiles on us as of yore,
And we hear the wail of the blast and the hail
  About and against the door;
And the wild gusts screech through the elm and beach,
  Till the leaves seem living things;
Through each cranny and nook, and by streamlet and brook,
  Old Boreas whistles and sings;
But we heed not the storm, for our home is warm,
  And the friends we prize most are near,
They’re entwined round our heart: Ah! why must we part
  From the dear ones we value most dear?

    But they’re gone, ay, gone before us,
    Down life’s river to death’s shore. Thus
    We must go, and o’er us
      The sad winds! the sad winds!
    Will chant wild songs for ages,
    When savage winter rages,
    “Death is all mortals’ wages,”
      Sing the winds, sing the winds.
    Ah! where’s the great man’s glory,
    The brave, the wise, the hoary,
    Go, listen to their story
      From the winds, from the winds.
      Oh, a lesson we can learn from those winds.

 

 

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