Classic Poem

I AM Wind, the deathless dreamer
Of the summer world;
Tranced in snows of shade and shimmer,
On a cloud scarp curled.

Fluting through the argent shadow
And the molten shine
Of the golden, lonesome summer
And its dreams divine.

All unseen, I walk the meadows,
Or I wake the wheat,
Speeding o'er the tawny billows
With my phantom feet.

All the world's face, hushed and sober,
Wrinkles where I run;
Turning sunshine into shadow,
Shadow into sun.

Stirring soft the breast of waters
With my winnowing wings,
Waking the grey ancient wood
From hushed imaginings.

Where the blossoms drowse in languors,
Or a vagrant sips,
Lifting nodding blade or petal
To my cooling lips;

Far from gloom of shadowed mountain,
Surge of sounding sea,
Bud and blossom, leaf and tendril,
All are glad of me.

Loosed in sunny deeps of heaven,
Like a dream, I go,
Guiding light my genie-driven
Flocks, in herds of snow; —

Ere I moor them o'er the thirsting
Woods and fields beneath,
Dumbly yearning, from their burning
Dream of parched death.

Not a sorrow do I borrow
From the golden day,
Not a shadow holds the meadow
Where my footsteps stray;

Light and cool, my kiss is welcome
Under sun and moon,
To the weary vagrant wending
Under parched noon;

To the languid, nodding blossom
In its moonlit dell,
All earth's children sad and yearning
Know and love me well.

Without passion, without sorrow,
Driven in my dream,
Through the season's trance of sleeping
Cloud and field and stream; —

Haunting woodlands, lakes and forests,
Seas and clouds impearled,
I am Wind, the deathless dreamer
Of the summer world.