The Wind

The wind it is a mystic thing,
Wandering o’er ocean wide,
And fanning all the thousand sails
That o’er its billows glide.
It curls the blue waves into foam,
It snaps the strongest mast,
Then like a sorrowing thing it sighs,
When the wild storm is past.
And yet how gently does it come
At evening through the bowers,
As if it said a kind “good-night”
To all the closing flowers.
It bears the perfume of the rose,
It fans the insect’s wing;
‘T is round me, with me everywhere,
Yet ‘t is an unseen thing.
How many sounds it bears along,
As o’er the earth it goes;
The songs of many joyous hearts,
The sounds of many woes!
It enters into palace halls,
And carries thence the sound
Of mirth and music;—but it creeps
The narrow prison round,
And bears away the captive’s sigh,
Who sits in sorrow there;
Or from the martyr’s lonely cell
Conveys his evening prayer.
It fans the reaper’s heated brow;
It through the window creeps,
And lifts the fair child’s golden curls,
As on her couch she sleeps.
‘T is like the light, a gift to all,
To prince, to peasant given;
Awake, asleep, around us still,
There is this gift of heaven:
This strange, mysterious thing we call
The breeze, the air, the wind;
We call it so, but know no more,—
‘T is mystery, like our mind.
Think not the things most wonderful
Are those beyond our ken,
For wonders are around the paths,
The daily paths of men!