the connection here is not altogether based on fancy—the biting winds of winter have their own emotional "tone" for susceptible minds, just as truly as the spanking breeze "that follows fast," or the balmy zephyr of summer, and have moulded modern thought in manifold and unsuspected modes. Shelley, who has been called the great laureate of the wind, contemplating the coming storm and the wild whirling of the autumn leaves, is profoundly moved and exclaims:
"O wild West-Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being—
. . . Be thou, spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one,
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth."
Alexander Smith, with a spirit rendered buoyant by the blast, tells how
"The Wind, that grand old harper, smote
His thunder harp of pines."
Guy de Maupassant, in the passage already partly quoted, shows that the modern sailor can still personify. "Quel personnage, le vent, pour les marins! On en parle comme d'un homme, d'un souverain tout puissant, tantôt terrible et tantôt bienveillant. . . . Aucun ennemi ne nous donne que lui la sensation du combat, ne nous force a tant de prévoyance, car il est le maitre de la mer, celui qu'on peut éviter, utiliser ou fuir, mais qu'on ne dompte jamais." Kingsley breaks forth:
"Welcome, wild North-Easter!
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;
Ne'er an ode to thee.
. . .
Come as came our fathers,
Heralded by thee,
Conquering from the eastward,
Lords by land and sea.
Come, and strong within us
Stir the Viking's blood,
Bracing brain and sinew;
Blow, thou wind of God!"
No, the power of vision is not dim, on man's part; nor, on the part of the winds of heaven, is abated their natural power to rule men's moods as they rule the responsive ocean. Those whose mystic insight is undulled by the materialistic tendencies of the age can still have glimpses of
"heaven's cherubim, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air."
The untutored mind of the Indian, says Pope, sees God not only in winds, but in clouds. Clouds are, so to speak, the creations of the air, and share its mystic fortunes. Even Keble could respond to their suggestion of life, and asks: