Classic Poem

That wind is from the North: I know it well;
No other breeze could have so wild a swell.

Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell,
Then faintly dies, and softly sighs,
And moans and murmurs mournfully.
I know its language: thus it speaks to me:

‘I have passed over thy own mountains dear,
Thy northern mountains, and they still are free;
Still lonely, wild, majestic, bleak and drear,
And stern, and lovely, as they used to be

‘When thou, a young enthusiast,
As wild and free as they,
O'er rocks, and glens, and snowy heights,
Didst often love to stray.

‘I've blown the pure, untrodden snows
In whirling eddies from their brows;
And I have howled in caverns wild,
Where thou, a joyous mountain-child,
Didst dearly love to be.
The sweet world is not changed, but thou
Art pining in a dungeon now,
Where thou must ever be.

‘No voice but mine can reach thy ear,
And Heaven has kindly sent me here
To mourn and sigh with thee,
And tell thee of the cherished land
Of thy nativity.’

Blow on, wild wind; thy solemn voice,
However sad and drear,
Is nothing to the gloomy silence
I have had to bear.

Hot tears are streaming from my eyes,
But these are better far
Than that dull, gnawing, tearless time,
The stupor of despair.

Confined and hopeless as I am,
Oh, speak of liberty!
Oh, tell me of my mountain home,
And I will welcome thee!