Euroclydon

On the storm-cloven Cape     The bitter waves roll,     With the bergs of the Pole,     And the darks and the damps of the Northern Sea:     For the storm-cloven Cape     Is an alien Shape     With a fearful face; and it moans, and it stands     Outside all lands     Everlastingly!     When the fruits of the year     Have been gathered in Spain,     And the Indian rain     Is rich on the evergreen lands of the Sun,     There comes to this Cape     To this alien Shape,     As the waters beat in and the echoes troop forth,     The Wind of the North,     Euroclydon!     And the wilted thyme,     And the patches past     Of the nettles cast     In the drift of the rift, and the broken rime,     Are tumbled and blown     To every zone     With the famished glede, and the plovers thinned     By this fourfold Wind     This Wind sublime!     On the wrinkled hills,     By starts and fits,     The wild Moon sits;     And the rindles fill and flash and fall     In the way of her light,     Through the straitened night,     When the sea-heralds clamour, and elves of the war,     In the torrents afar,     Hold festival!     From ridge to ridge     The polar fires     On the naked spires,     With a foreign splendour, flit and flow;     And clough and cave     And architrave     Have a blood-coloured glamour on roof and on wall,     Like a nether hall     In the hells below!     The dead, dry lips     Of the ledges, split     By the thunder fit     And the stress of the sprites of the forked flame,     Anon break out,     With a shriek and a shout,     Like a hard, bitter laughter, cracked and thin,     From a ghost with a sin     Too dark for a name!     And all thro the year,     The fierce seas run     From sun to sun,     Across the face of a vacant world!     And the Wind flies forth     From the wild, white North,     That shivers and harries the heart of things,     And shapes with its wings     A chaos uphurled!     Like one who sees     A rebel light     In the thick of the night,     As he stumbles and staggers on summits afar     Who looks to it still,     Up hill and hill,     With a steadfast hope (though the ways be deep,     And rough, and steep),     Like a steadfast star     So I, that stand     On the outermost peaks     Of peril, with cheeks     Blue with the salts of a frosty sea,     Have learnt to wait,     With an eye elate     And a heart intent, for the fuller blaze     Of the Beauty that rays     Like a glimpse for me     Of the Beauty that grows     Whenever I hear     The winds of Fear     From the tops and the bases of barrenness call;     And the duplicate lore     Which I learn evermore,     Is of Harmony filling and rounding the Storm,     And the marvellous Form     That governs all!