The Wind
The Wind
Original Text
- T. H. Chivers, Virginalia; or, Songs of my Summer Nights. A Gift of Love for the Beautiful (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, 1853): 113.
1Thou wringest, with thy invisible hand, the foam
2 Out of the emerald drapery of the sea,
3Beneath whose foldings lies the Sea-Nymph's home --
4 Lifted, to make it visible, by thee;
5Till thou art exiled, earthward, from the maine,
6To cool the parched tongue of the Earth with rain.
7Thy viewless wing sweeps, with its tireless flight,
8 Whole Navies from their boundings on the waves --
9Wrapping the canvas, pregnant with thy might,
10 Around the seamen in their watery graves!
11Till thou dost fall asleep upon the grass,
12And then the ocean is as smooth as glass.
13Thou art the Gardner of the flowery earth --
14 The Sower in the spring-time of the year --
15Clearing plantations, in thy goings forth,
16 Amid the wilderness, where all is drear --
17Scattering ten thousand giant oaks around,
18Like playthings, on the dark, opprobrious ground.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire / Sharine Leung
RPO Edition
2012
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