I joyed to stand where the jeweled hand
Of the maiden-morning lies
On the tawny brow of the mountain-land.
Where the eagle shrieks and cries,
And holds his throne to himself alone
From the light of human eyes.
Adown deep glades where the forest shades
Are dim as the dusk of day—
Where only the foot of the wild beast wades,
Or the Indian dares to stray,
As the blacksnakes glide through the reeds and hide
In the swamp-depths grim and gray.
And I turned and fled from the place of dread
To the far-off haunts of men.
"In the city's heart is rest," I said,—
But I found it not, and when
I saw but care and vice reign there
I was filled with wrath again:
And I blew a spark in the midnight dark
Till it flashed to an angry flame
And scarred the sky with a lurid mark
As red as the blush of shame:
And a hint of hell was the dying yell
That up from the ruins came.
The bells went wild, and the black smoke piled
Its pillars against the night,
Till I gathered them, like flocks defiled,
And scattered them left and right,
While the holocaust's red tresses tossed
As a maddened Fury's might.
"Ye overthrown!" did I jeer and groan—
"Ho! who is your master?—say!—
Ye shapes that writhe in the slag and moan
Your slow-charred souls away—
Ye worse than worst of things accurst—
Ye dead leaves of a day!"
I am the Wind, and I rule mankind,
And I hold a sovereign reign
Over the lands, as God designed,
And the waters they contain:
Lo! the bound of the wide world round
Falleth in my domain!
. . . . . . .
'I wake, as one from a dream half done,
And gaze with a dazzled eye
On an autumn leaf like a scrap of sun
That the wind goes whirling by,
While afar I hear, with a chill of fear,
The winter storm-king sigh.'