On all the upland pastures the strong winds gallop free,
Trampling down the flowered stalks sleepy in the sun,
Whirl away in blue and gold all their finery,
Till naked crouch the gentle hosts where the winds have run.
Along the rocking hillsides shaggy heads are bent;
Out upon the tawny plains tortured dust leaps high;
The red roof of the sunset is torn away and rent,
And chaos lifts the heavy sea and bends the hollow sky.
The winds are drunk with freedom—the crowded valleys roar;
The madness surges through their veins, and when they gallop out
The black rain follows close behind, the pale sun flees before,
And recklessly across the world goes all the broken rout.
I was striding on the uplands when the host was running mad,
I saw them threshing through the leaves and daisy tops below,
And as their feet came up the hill, my tired heart grew glad—
Till at the music of their throats I knew that I must go.
So the winds are now my brothers, they have joined me to their ranks,
And when their rampant strength wells up and drives them singing forth,
I am with them when they roll the fog across the oily banks,
And tumble out the sleeping bergs that crowd beyond the north.
The woods are drenched with moonlight and every leafs awake;
The little beads of dew sit white on every twig and blade;
A thousand stars are scattered thick beneath the forest lake;
We pass—with only laughter for the havoc we have made.
There's not a wind that brushes the long bright fields of corn,
Or, shrieking, drives the broken wreck beneath a blackened sea,
There's not a wind that draws the rain across the face of morn
That does not rise when I arise and sink again with me.