Latest quotes | Random quotes | Vote! | Latest comments | Submit quote

The Wind

ACROSS the barren moors the wild, wild wind
Went sweeping on, and with his sobs and shrieks
Filled the still night, and tore the woof of clouds
Through which the moon did shed her cold clear light.
From age to age a houseless wanderer he--
Neither of heaven, nor yet of earth, but doomed
For evermore to waver 'twixt the two:--
Begging the moon with moans to take him up
Into her charmèd calm; now with a wail,
Piteous and low, beseeching that the earth
Might fold him to her bosom, but in vain!
A lonely outcast, frenzied does he storm
Wildly from land to land, from sea to sea,
Driving the clouds before him, ploughing up
The shaking sod, splitting the tow'ring masts,
And laying low the oaks of thousand years.
But I that night ne'er closed an eye in sleep,
For I did see him wand'ring o'er the moor--
A giant phantom lost in midnight gloom,
Flitting a restless shadow 'twixt the earth
And round orbed moon; loose tattered folds of clouds,
Ragged with ages, swept behind, as he
With Titan strides did bridge the rocky chasms;
Oh how he sobbed and shrieked, and howled and roared,
Torn with eternal hunger after home.
So roars the lion from Numidian peaks,
Swaying his manèd head from side to side,
As low, then loud and louder swell his tones,
Till big with horror thro' the forest lone
They roll towards the plain, curdling the blood
Of flocks and herds returning to the fold.
So howls the famished wolf across the waste
Siberian snows, with glare of restless eyes,
Making a hideous brilliance in the dark.
Now worn away, the wild wind's voice would die
Fainting with its excess; then draw a sigh--
Sounding far off, and then a soughing wail,
A roar, a shriek, to pierce the ears of night;
So on and on, through all the livelong night;
And all the livelong night I tossed about;
His stormy voice, it would not let me rest,
But woke an echo in me, rolling on
Over my boundless waste of soul, till all
The weary longings and the phantoms wild,
The cravings with their thirst unquenchable,
The doubts--dark looming in the nether mists,
Rose up in tumult, shrieking with one voice:
'Is there no goal? shall we for aye and aye
Be hurried restlessly through endless space?
Oh has the storm no nest? the soul no home?

[...] Read more

poem by Report problemRelated quotes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Share

Related quotes

Couldn't select: Can't find FULLTEXT index matching the column list