Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO THE NORTH WIND, by FRANK WILMOT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO THE NORTH WIND, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There will be no more rest
Last Line: Pull fragrant logs along the valley rails.
Alternate Author Name(s): Maurice, Furnley
Subject(s): Wind


THERE will be no more rest
In the night or the morn,
That comes with three drab roses at its breast
Tossed between thorn and thorn.
Now in a sullen rage,
Like a mad woman shuddering her hair,
The cowed trees shake their foliage
Freeing it from the dust the wind set there.

This wind that has given the sun a smoky hue
Savages flowers as a mad dog might;
The corn begins to trill within the shoe,
The blowfly chorus takes its droning flight.

Flat-out on the verandah Rover lies
And lifts a momentarily joyous tail
Which falls back with a thud and then his eyes
Attempt a greeting, but these also fail.
The breakfast-room exudes
Smells of untouchable foods,
'You must have something to eat before you go.'
'Oh God, not porridge! No!'

The chain-gang ghost is out. With chain-gang stride
The folk lurching to trains, languidly drag
Their ankles in the dust; the starchy pride
Of collars has collapsed, each maid's a hag
And every sheik the love-child of a lag.
With sticky shirt, screwed eye and clammy hand
All wear the expressionless features of the ox;
The tarred roads waken to reboil their sand,
Pitch bubbles up between the pavement blocks.

The C.C. fiends with smoking hell-carts come
To tar the steaming blocks for the rubber soles
Of the squelching tyres whereon the Rolls Royce rolls
And reeking bitumen makes the nostrils hum.
So fierce these men, so burned, that often they
(Or so the urchins say)
Try hell for a holiday.
And well they may!

And so thinks grandpapa perspiring while,
In prayerful stance with shoulders drooping low,
He feebly wipes the headband of his tile
And mops his aerially asphalted brow.

With knuckles pressed upon his stinging eyes
And hooked forefingers gouging gritty ears
Howe'er the clerk pursues his enterprise
A vision of Mount Dandenong appears.

Trampling the oozy rubble of the fern
He gives his memory to the humid shades
That cluster where the valley Sisters burn
Their unseen incense down the columned glades.
He sees the browned nymphs folded under the hues
Of the green, rolling surf; envies the swart Clydesdales
Which, splintering the corduroy with massive shoes,
Pull fragrant logs along the valley rails.





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