The Warrior Wind
Once more the wind leaps from the sullen land
With his old battle-cry.
A tree bends darkly where the wall looms high;
Its tortured branches, like a grisly hand,
Clutch at the sky.
Grey towers rise from gloom and underneath—
Black-barred and strong—
The snarling windows guard their ancient wrong;
But the mad wind shakes them, hissing through his teeth
A battle song.
O bitter is the challenge that he flings
At bars and bolts and keys.
Torn with the cries of vanished centuries
And curses hurled at long-forgotten kings
Beyond dim seas.
The wind alone, of all the gods of old,
Men could not chain.
O wild wind, brother to my wrath and pain,
Like you, within a restless heart I hold
A hurricane.
The wind has known the dungeons of the past
Knows all that are;
And in due time will strew their dust afar,
And singing, he will shout their doom at last
To a laughing star.
O cleansing warrior wind, stronger than death,
Wiser than men may know;
O smite these stubborn walls and lay them low,
Uproot and rend them with your mighty breath—
Blow, wild wind, blow!