Classic Poem

The spring was mild, the air was warm,
All green the things upon the farm,
The corn put forth its tender sprout,
The daffodils came bursting out;
Above the hedge, in skimming flight,
The blackbird hardly touched the light,
Whilst in the meadows lush and green
The lambs and foals at play were seen,
When suddenly the wind turned round
And blew across from “Deadman's Ground”
(Where Farmer Rogers caught his wife
And killed her with a carving knife).
The oldest labourers about,
Who read the weather inside out,
Say, when it comes from out that quarter,
You know it's nothing else but slaughter.
For when it blows from there by night
It fills the animals with fright;
And when it blows from there by day
It drives your happiness away.
It nips the fruit, it starves the corn,
And everything that's newly born;
It sweeps the land with icy breath,
And strikes all growing things with death.
The farmer feels his liver growl,
And soon his children start to howl,
Until they wonder why the weather
Can fill a man wi' crazy blether.
He kicks his dog, then rushes out
To sack his foreman with a shout,
Growls at his wife, and scolds his daughter
Because the ducks have left the water;
He sees the wrack upon the wing,
And feels his life's a wasted thing;
The labourers, with wrinkled faces,
Are keeping in the shady places,
Afraid of wind and master, too,
And very careful what they do.
Down in the fields, with backs all hunched,
The horses and the cattle, bunched,
Stand by the hedge to miss the blast
That wails and whines and whistles past;
Their coats are ruffled wrong way round,
Because it blows off “Deadman's Ground”,
Their tails are down, their eyes are dull,
And quiet is the angry bull.
But yet the sky is bright and blue
With everything of clearest hue,
The Wolds are close enough to feel
Their trees and houses cut in steel,
The sun is tempting with a smile,
The wind is slaying with a knife,
[It aggravated Rogers' bile—
He killed himself upon his wife].
It kills the young, it kills the old,
It fells the timid with the bold;
Swift as a flash, hard as a stone,
Sharp as a flint, dry as a bone,
It pierces you without a sound,
The blast that comes from “Deadman's Ground”;
For when the wind is in the east
It's fit for neither man nor beast.