Classic Poem

From far-reaching ranges of valley and highland,
The wild west-wind couriers form,
And send out the breezes o'er ocean and island
To herald the on-coming storm.

The wind-horses toss their foam-manes to the thunder
And charge with the lightning and hail;
Their squadrons of tempest are beating things under
The feet of the trampling gale.

Invisible armies course down the free sky-ways,
Cloud-veiling the earth's azure roofs;
They plough the round planet with furrows and highways,
The scars of their hammering hoofs.

They gallop in phalanx, resistless in motion,
A phantom-winged army of ghosts;
They drive their white caravels over the ocean,
And beat them to spray on the coasts.

For stern readjustments the wind-horses battle,
And ever the strongest prevail;
The oaks on the mountains their iron arms rattle,
And laugh as they comb out the gale.

The earth is renewed by the flails of the winter,
Reborn from the womb of the blast;
The hailstones that beat and the lightnings that splinter
Are angels of healing at last.

So all the immortals, the viewless wind-horses,
Face-hidden, feet hidden in flight,
Consuming, enlarging, ennobling the forces
That bend to the infinite light,

Are wings of the silent ones gleaming with glory,
Whose spirits fire-girded and strong,
Dream-souled and cloud-visaged, are sovereigns of story,
The sources of vision and song.

A permanent flame from the Heart of the Ages,
A fire in a vesturing cloud,
Is flung o'er the sensitive souls of the sages
Who cry in the desert aloud.

O weird is their song in its sternness and beauty,
In echoing laughter and tears;
In deeds of heroic adventure and duty,
It rings down the palpitant years.