War Drums (Scharkie)/Western Winds

by Louis Edward Scharkie

WESTERN WINDS.

'Tis night, the moon is round and high,
And stars are must'ring on th'ethereal heights;
Not as in other times, when all the sky
Seems but a mass of blinking lights.

The stars are few; perhaps, blown out
By windy spirits from the western wolds,
For every hill takes up an airy shout,
And sways, and swings its leafy folds.

Loud western spirits!-long they've slept.
One summer day, the violet, at their blast,
Folded its purple little hands, and stept
Across the present to the past.

And since, they've slept apace, mayhap,
Caverned with winter for a short respite,
Gathering new purpose from their nap
To chase the swallow on its seaward flight.

The oak-tree knows them, for he sighs;
The bamboo shrieks adown the spectral night;
And swoll'n drap'ries, trailing thro' the skies,
Toss like torn standards in the fight.

Blow, spirits! blow; rock ye the hills;
Waken the oak and reed in weirdest tone;
Yours is the music that the poet feels—
Yours is the touch that wakes his own.

Plaint songs of hidden mountain streams,
Guild his still harps with a diviner light;
And sunny bowers lapt in summer dreams,
And stars reeling along the night.

But ye have meaning too,—weird, dim,—
Nature's organ pealing it in your own
Deep-toned, unriddled and eternal hymn,
Struck to the thought of God alone.