Classic Poem

Swooping over the corn-fields,
Blowing their tepees awry,
Whirling the crows in hundreds,
Like leaves, against the sky,
Veering and beating and darting—
Would that I, too, might fly!

Over the uplands together,
Wander at will and sing!
This is the care-free weather—
Make the blue welkin ring!
For the gale has broken its tether,
And the wind is a living thing!

Towns and cities and peoples
Helpless lie in thy way,
Shake all their towers and steeples,
Strain every topmast and stay,
Blow all our poor human error
Far o'er the buffeted bay!

Roar, thou viking of heaven!
Whistle thy songs uncouth;
Drive back the dallying breezes
Into the lap of the South;
Start all the forest to war tunes
With blasts from thy mighty mouth.

Aye, walls and chimneys must crumble,
And people but haste to decay;
The kingdoms totter and tumble
And are blown with a storm breath away;
So, with roar and laughter and rumble,
Ride on, thou king of a day!

Yea, I am thy subject, as loyal
As the asters that bend in thy path,
And the goldenrod—messengers royal—
Or scent of the late aftermath.
I fill my lungs at thy bellows
And share in thy boisterous wrath.

My arms are spread like the oak tree
To welcome thy lusty embrace;
I scud with the gusts, bareheaded,
And exult in thy glorious race;
For the autumn wind is my lover,
And I welcome him, face to face.