Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE WIND, by LOUIS MERCIER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE WIND, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: All last night and all day long
Last Line: He moves off. They can hear him in the leaves.
Subject(s): Homeless; Storms; Weather; Wind


All last night and all day long
The wind has swept the fields like a disaster.

Swooped madly down upon the works of men
Faster and faster
Over the fruits of men's labor, strong
To knock down nuts and shake the apple trees—
The old ones in the orchard will never again
Bloom—and the haycocks' caps are jarred
And the fowl are aclutter in a corner of the yard.
And all around the house it rails
With galloping tumult and harrowing hails,
With rushing multitudes of dark
Everywhere, nowhere at all;
Groaning walls lashed by the fiends of the squall;
Of a sudden a door opens yonder—hark!
That's a shutter banging the Lord knows where
And the weathercocks' cry as they turn around
And the panting sound, the nearing sound
Of something invisible moving there
That stills the heart and lifts the hair. ...
Ah! How the house has suffered today—
But as dusk wans gray,
Weary of its futile force,
Weary of its evil way,
Heavy with remorse
On the household roof the wind its vigil keeps
And weeps.

The wind,
Feeling in its task it had fiendishly sinned,
At the hour when they gather round the fireside,
With confused pleading to the mortals cried:

"Have pity on the wind that roams
For evermore,
Hear how it vainly scours and combs
For stock and store:

How never a home throughout the world
Its lamp has lit,
Nor a roof, through the centuries unfurled,
Has sheltered it.

Nor has ever seen embers of the hearth
Smiling at eve
Nor known man rise to the gate of his garth
To receive.

Pity this homeless mendicant
And set him free
From the soul-wrack that renders him adamant,
From his ennui.

Soon the passerby will be far awing
Like a migrant bird;
Grant him surcease for his journeying
With one kind word."

He is done. But finding that no one perceives,
He moves off. They can hear him in the leaves.





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