Flowering May Is fresh and gay, Come and greet the golden sun. Come away, Come and play, Come, oh! come out, everyone! To the Wind Wind, wind, Do you whisper eerie sonnets to the moon As it rises white and sickled? Do you croon Silver-coloured ditties pale and low As you rock the cedar branches too and fro? Do you sing to woo the bat, Is it that, is it that? Have you tunes for such a sullen little wraith, Half dream, swooping high, scarcely seen, chiefly faith? Would you hold a phantom to your breast As you murmur gently love-notes from the west? Wind, wind, Every tree is but a harp for your desire, Every leaf a mellow string to swell your choir, Every grass a cooing reed At your need, for your need, Drums and clashing cymbals of the sea Boom a pæan, hurl a flood of melody. Wind, wind, Men have snatched an air or two Of a fantasy from you And have prisoned them in books to make them stay, Scattered fragments that your lips have blown this way. Small and shy and thin and cramped and grave, They are caged and tied to paper in a stave. Do you mind, Oh Wind? But you laugh and troll out gaily on your way, "Keep the fragments, little earth-men, dance and play, 'Tis a dainty roundelay, Hold it, pray; hold it, pray. For myself, my breath is fierce, myself am great, For my tiny fallen airs I dare not wait; Storms beneath my rushing wings unfurled Roll the symphonies which dominate the world." The Grey Wind I have been, where never man went, With the grey wind: Far from the gorse and the wet earth scent I have been. I have seen, what no man hath seen With the grey wind: I have cowered down his knees between: I have seen. I have heard, what no man hath heard With the grey wind: The dry leaves crackle and snap at his word I have heard. I have heard, and I watched them fly All the wild leaves In a hustled crowd, to the stormy sky, At his word. And they swept in a whirlwind wan, Churned by his breath, Out to the windways, where never sun shone, Forth they swept. Whiles they leapt in a maddened dance, Swung scatterwise; Eddied and swirled to a swift advance Till they crept Spent and worn, in their frenzied fear, Leaves of brown-gold Chittering feebly in masses sere, Crazed and slow: And I know, what never man knew, Those poor dead leaves Are the souls of men the grey wind slew-- This I know. Poeta Nascitur Tho' all mayn't know it, Rules only, never made a poet. He thought to shape his writings into verse, He pruned them down to language fixed and terse, But finding that would give his tricks no play, Spurned his reserve, and tried another way.