Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NORTH WIND AT NIGHT, by NORMAN ROWLAND GALE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NORTH WIND AT NIGHT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Good it is when northern winds come blowing / from the ice and bear
Last Line: Care and pain depart like swallows lifting to a friendly land.
Subject(s): Wind


GOOD it is when northern winds come blowing from the ice and bear,
Shouting round the lofty steeple till the opal stars can hear;
Good it is in shifting dusks to feel the polar thunder-flail
Lashing at the weary forehead with its knots of biting hail:

Hurricances that blow the foxes over leagues toward their prey,
Roaring sagas of the mainland, songs of crashing ice at play;
Hurricanes with ghostly chorus of the Norsemen grim and stark
Hurling oaths at giant foemen hacking furious in the dark.

In the lulls between the wrangle of the tempest and the floe
Sweet it is to fancy love-songs of the patient Eskimo.
Speeding, warm at heart, across the rugged purity of plain,
Love beneath his furs as constant as beneath the ice the main.

How I joy to hear the sinews of the god of northern blast
Crackle as his fingers fasten on the icy hilt and vast!
Rushing over wold and valley, dusky dells and uplands bleak,
How he flings his frozen gauntlet at the challenge of my cheek!

Could he dash the dew about me from the blooms of other stars,
Pansies from the lap of Venus, speary rushes down from Mars,
More I'd love his gusty onset than the woman-breeze that brings
Scent of harems and the radiant Persian roses on its wings.

Northland god, your tears of fury drive upon my freshened cheeks
While the roadside branch above me writhes in agony and creaks.
As we wrestle at the midnight, breast to breast, and hand to hand,
Care and pain depart like swallows lifting to a friendly land.





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