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.