Hear the slumbrous summer wind,
Soothing wind,
In its balmy quietude what happiness we find!
How it sighs amid the trees,
In a gentle zephyrous breeze,
Flowing through the Æolian harp
Of the pines that scarcely warp
At its breath!
Bearing to our ears beneath
Still the same monotonous hum,
Like the pheasant's distant drum,
Sounding faintly, faintly through the woodlands sere,
Swelling now, now dying, on the ear.
While through all our senses steals,
Steals a languid drowsy pleasure,
All the bliss of rest and leisure,
Summer's quiet, priceless boon;
And beneath the sun of noon
Nature lies in silent sleep,
Peaceful, motionless, and deep;
Save alone the whispering breeze
Crooning softly through the trees;
Save the sighing, swelling, dying,
Music of the summer breeze.
Hear the storm-foretelling wind,
Warning wind.
What a fearful tale it tells to the mind!
Floating from the storm-cloud's track,
From the devastation black
Of the Storm-King;
Whispering
Of shattered woods and falling floods
And proud trees bending to the quivering ground.
Scarce a leaf is stirred;
Scarce a sound is heard,
Save a low, dismal sighing all around,
A saddened, plaintive murmuring
That appeals not to the ear;
But with curdling sense of fear
(Such as in the depth of night
Fills the spirit with affright,
And breathless awe, and dread
Of visits from the dead)
Appals the heart and clogs the pulses' flow.
While sadly slow,
And laden all with woe,
Floats on the warning wind,
The storm-foretelling wind.
Hear the raging midnight wind,
Raving wind.
How it rouses with its fury soul and mind!
Soughing from the inky sky
With a stormful energy,
Like a far tempestuous sea,
Hurled upon a rocky shore
With a hoarse and awful roar:
Swelling, rising, raving, raging,
Shrieking out its wild despair,
As though the heaven-fallen host,
All the spirits damned and lost,
Were, in maddening career,
Sweeping round the lonely house,
Whirling high the spectral boughs,
Racking with malignant fury earth and air,
Till mind and soul in the weird conflict share,
And all is as a starless sea
Tossing in its agony.
Thus in midnight's solemn hour,
With a spirit-wakening power,
O'er earth and ocean wave
Does the weird night-wind rave.
Soothing wind,
In its balmy quietude what happiness we find!
How it sighs amid the trees,
In a gentle zephyrous breeze,
Flowing through the Æolian harp
Of the pines that scarcely warp
At its breath!
Bearing to our ears beneath
Still the same monotonous hum,
Like the pheasant's distant drum,
Sounding faintly, faintly through the woodlands sere,
Swelling now, now dying, on the ear.
While through all our senses steals,
Steals a languid drowsy pleasure,
All the bliss of rest and leisure,
Summer's quiet, priceless boon;
And beneath the sun of noon
Nature lies in silent sleep,
Peaceful, motionless, and deep;
Save alone the whispering breeze
Crooning softly through the trees;
Save the sighing, swelling, dying,
Music of the summer breeze.
Hear the storm-foretelling wind,
Warning wind.
What a fearful tale it tells to the mind!
Floating from the storm-cloud's track,
From the devastation black
Of the Storm-King;
Whispering
Of shattered woods and falling floods
And proud trees bending to the quivering ground.
Scarce a leaf is stirred;
Scarce a sound is heard,
Save a low, dismal sighing all around,
A saddened, plaintive murmuring
That appeals not to the ear;
But with curdling sense of fear
(Such as in the depth of night
Fills the spirit with affright,
And breathless awe, and dread
Of visits from the dead)
Appals the heart and clogs the pulses' flow.
While sadly slow,
And laden all with woe,
Floats on the warning wind,
The storm-foretelling wind.
Hear the raging midnight wind,
Raving wind.
How it rouses with its fury soul and mind!
Soughing from the inky sky
With a stormful energy,
Like a far tempestuous sea,
Hurled upon a rocky shore
With a hoarse and awful roar:
Swelling, rising, raving, raging,
Shrieking out its wild despair,
As though the heaven-fallen host,
All the spirits damned and lost,
Were, in maddening career,
Sweeping round the lonely house,
Whirling high the spectral boughs,
Racking with malignant fury earth and air,
Till mind and soul in the weird conflict share,
And all is as a starless sea
Tossing in its agony.
Thus in midnight's solemn hour,
With a spirit-wakening power,
O'er earth and ocean wave
Does the weird night-wind rave.