Poems (Hooper)/The Protestant Wind

by Lucy Hamilton Hooper

THE PROTESTANT WIND. 1688.

Come hither, hither, daughter mine!
 And close the casement fast,
With thankful hearts and joyful hopes
 We listen to the blast.
The days of watching and of woe
 Are past, and Fear has ceased;
The vanes on all the steeples veer,
 The wind 1s 1n the east!

The Liberator's prows to-day
 Cleave swift the foaming sea,
His sails are swelling with the wind
 Heav'n sent to set us free.
The Smithfield fires shall never blaze
 Again, for prince or priest,
For God and Freedom walk the wave,
 The wind is in the east!

In Whitehall sits our tyrant king
 And marks the clouds flit past,
He trembles at the veering vanes,
 And cowers 'neath the blast.
Pray, bigot, to your graven gods,
 Kneel to each shaven priest.
Have they no power o'er the winds?
 The wind is in the east!

My father fell on Naseby field,
 'Neath Cromwell's smile he died,
His Bible folded to his breast,
 His good sword at his side.
I would that he had lived to learn
 This day's bright hope at least,
To cry, "God save the King who comes!"
 The wind is in the east!

Nay, put aside the flagon, child,
 I'll drain no cup to-day,
But bring my father's Bible here,
 And let us kneel and pray
For him who comes to rid our land
 Of tyrant and of priest.
God's breath is on the stormy deep,—
 The wind is in the east!