THE WINDS. I. YE winds, ye unseen currents of the air, O'er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow; Before you the catalpa's blossoms flew, Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow. II. How are ye changed! Ye take the cataract's sound; Skyward, the whirling fragments out of sight. III. The weary fowls of heaven make wing in vain, To escape your wrath; ye seize and dash them dead. Against the earth ye drive the roaring rain ; The harvest-field becomes a river's bed; IV. Ye dart upon the deep, and straight is heard Flings o'er his shivering plumes the fountain's spray See! to the breaking mast the sailor clings; Ye scoop the ocean to its briny springs, V. Why rage ye thus ?-no strife for liberty Has made you mad; no tyrant, strong through fear, Has chained your pinions till ye wrenched them free, And rushed into the unmeasured atmosphere; For ye were born in freedom where ye blow; Earth's solemn woods were yours, her wastes of snow, Her isles where summer blossoms all the year. VI. O YE wild winds! a mightier Power than yours VII. Yet oh, when that wronged Spirit of our race And leap in freedom from his prison-place, Lord of his ancient hills and fruitful plains, Let him not rise, like these mad winds of air, To waste the loveliness that time could spare, To fill the earth with wo, and blot her fair Unconscious breast with blood from human veins. VIII. But may he like the spring-time come abroad, Who crumbles winter's gyves with gentle might, When in the genial breeze, the breath of God, Come spouting up the unsealed springs to light; Flowers start from their dark prisons at his feet, The woods, long dumb, awake to hymnings sweet, And morn and eve, whose glimmerings almost meet, Crowd back to narrow bounds the ancient night. THE OLD MAN'S COUNSEL. AMONG Our hills and valleys, I have known Wise and grave men, who, while their diligent hand Tended or gathered in the fruits of earth, Were reverent learners in the solemn school Of nature. Not in vain to them were sent Seed-time and harvest, or the vernal shower That darkened the brown tilth, or snow that beat Who veils his glory with the elements. One such I knew long since, a white-haired man, Pithy of speech, and merry when he would; From what he saw his quaint moralities. |