Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PRAIRIE WINDS, by WILLIAM EARL HILL



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PRAIRIE WINDS, by                    
First Line: O savage spirits of the air's unrest
Last Line: We trust all shall be well—where winds are still!
Subject(s): Prairies; Wind; Plains


O savage spirits of the air's unrest,
Ye that are fickle Change's very breath,
Ye wail as though by Goblin Fear obsessed,
And flee like ghosts before some flaming Death.
Yet you I love. Your shrieks are savage song.
Ye paint the prairie Heaven's vast pageantry.
Ye give our plains a life, moving and strong.
Ye are to us our mountains and our sea.
So I have loved you from my earliest youth.
And I have loved your challenge unto me
To glimpse through Time's blown dust some Rock of Truth,
Firm-fashioned for the far eternity.
Then blow, ye Gales, no thing of Earth is still:
Meadows and fields toss like a raging sea;
Pale clouds black shades flicker o'er vale and hill;
And ev'n the dizzy heavens reel and flee;
And writhe, ye Trees, in dust! Through which afar
The hills, with blue and purple lights empearled,
Loom like that Giant's bastions whose huge car
With speed-mad, strident clangor shakes the world!
Blow, Prairie Winds! Though Earth grow sick with strife!
Blow! For ye change deserts to flowers and grain!
Across the endless leagues ye bear us Life!
Over a continent ye scatter RAIN!
Ye are the prairie gods of Fate—or Chance:
Prosperity and Dearth, and Joy and Pain—
Aye, Life and Death, and every circumstance
Of Good and Evil follow in your train.
Symbol of Human Life ye are to me:
Life's joys and pains are as the winds unstable.
The flower-fragrant breeze of ecstasy,
Driving its flocks of silver clouds, scarce able
To make soft murmurings in the leaves new born
To verdurous Spring—may change to blasts of heat
That burn to brown and brittle Death the corn
And leave a desolation in the wheat.
And there shall come Storm Winds with flashing eyes
Of lightning, long, black, streaming hair of rain,
And thunderous voices out of Night's black skies,
And clattering hooves that trample down the grain.
Ye bear to us green clouds of deadly hail,—
Gray showers—white snows—and freezing blasts of Death;
The sand-storm, that with many-jointed flail
Threshes the grain fields, rides upon your breath.

Oh! 'Neath your rainbowed showers red roses blow
Fair as first love and fragrant with delight,
And the tall corn and shimmering wheatfields grow
And bloom and seed, and all the Earth is bright!
But most I love you, Winds, when ye are strong
And clean and bracing, scattering Sloth and Ease:
Blow on me then! Your breath is like a song
Of Love's and Labor's brave activities.
I need your spur! Blow strong upon my soul!
Too often I have sought the languid breeze.
Make me to strive ere I may reach my goal,
Nor idle always under moveless trees.
Teach me to shun tornado blasts of Hate,
And fatal freezing winds of Selfishness;
To bear your tempests with a heart elate;
To front Death's blizzard nor one fear confess!
There is a Power whose laws rule winds and Life.
If true as "fickle" winds, we do His will,
Past fragrant zephyrs and fierce storms of Strife—
We trust all shall be well—where winds are still!





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