The Wind.

The ways of the wind are eerie      And I love them all,     The blithe, the mad, and the dreary,      Spring, Winter, and Fall.     When it tells to the waiting crocus      Its beak to show,     And hangs on the wayside locust      Bloom-bunches of snow.     When it comes like a balmy blessing      From the musky wood,     The half-grown roses caressing      Till their cheeks show blood.     When it roars in the Autumn season,      And whines with rain     Or sleet like a mind without reason,      Or a soul in pain.     When the wood-ways once so spicy      With bud and bloom     Are desolate, sear, and icy      As the icy tomb.     When the wild owl crouched and frowsy      In the rotten tree     Wails dolorous, cold, and drowsy,      His shuddering melody.     Then I love to sit in December      Where the big hearth sings,     And dreaming forget and remember      A host of things.     And the wind - I hear how it strangles      And gasps and sighs     On the roof's sharp, shivering angles      That front the skies.     How it groans and romps and tumbles      In attics o'erhead,     In the great-throated chimney rumbles,      Then all at once falls dead;     Till it comes like footsteps slipping      Of a child on the stair,     Or a quaint old gentleman tripping      With heavily powdered hair.     And my soul grows anxious hearted      For those once dear -     The long-lost loves departed      In the wind draw near.     And I seem to see their faces,      Not one estranged,     In their old accustomed places      'Round the wide hearth ranged.     And the wind that waits and poises      Where the shadows sway     Makes their visionary voices      Seem calling me far away.     And I wake in tears to listen      Again to the sobbing wind,     Far out on the lands that glisten,      Like the voice of one who sinned.