An Impromptu

Here in the pungent gloom     Where the tamarac roses glow     And the balsam burns its perfume,     A vireo turns his slow     Cadence, as if he gloated     Over the last phrase he floated;     Each one he moulds and mellows     Matching it with its fellows:     So have you noted     How the oboe croons,     The canary-throated,     In the gloom of the violoncellos     And bassoons.     But afar in the thickset forest     I hear a sound go free,     Crashing the stately neighbours     The pine and the cedar tree,     Horns and harps and tabors,     Drumming and harping and horning     In savage minstrelsy -     It wakes in my soul a warning     Of the wind of destiny.     My life is soaring and swinging     In triple walls of quiet,     In my heart there is rippling and ringing     A song with melodious riot,     When a fateful thing comes nigh it     A hush falls, and then     I hear in the thickset world     The wind of destiny hurled     On the lives of men.