WIND AT NIGHT

Give me the dark, the dark,

And a great wind triumphing out of the West

Through the death-struck woods and stark,

And beyond their reverberate bars

The unquenchable stars.

Give me the storm, the joy,

And the valkyr-ride of the reinless wind

And the wild-wood thoughts of a boy;

I’ll sing you the glamour of life, the strain

Of its beautiful pain.

Give me the dark, the night,

And all day’s littleness gone like the leaf;

With the shore-lights over me white

Time-blown through untellable miles

Of life’s ultimate isles.

Give me the dark, the rain,

And love like a great wind rending the heart

With terror, bewilderment, pain;

I shall live, I shall have, I shall spend

Life’s gold in the end.

Give me the wind, the wild;

I am sick of the safe broad ways of the world;

I am glad to have strayed like a child,

With pagan arms of my forest kin

To gather me in.