I

THIS was the secret of my mind:
That I was made Sister to the Wind.
Oh, I seemed a woman in my ways;
I sang for man’s praise or dispraise;
I spun, I wove unto their will;
Yet ever calling over the hill
And through the forest, from the sea,
I heard the voice of one more free,
Of one heart-brother unto me.

II

Bar the doors, he calls again.
(Ye would hold my hands in vain.)
Bar the doors, make fast the chain —
He is calling low.
Bind me, but think not to still
This wild heart or this wild will;
Bind, if ye would keep me till
He shall moan and go.
Bring the lights; watch me askance;
Bar the doors and bid me dance,
Forward, backward, in a trance
Swaying to and fro.
All my days a trance I deem,
All my dancing but a dream.
Wildly, Wind, this heart redeem,
That desires thee so!
Come within the unguarded night,
Shake the earth with thy mad might,
Stay the stars and quench their light —
Seize my hand and go!

III

What is the singing that I hear?
It is thy mother, child.
O no, it is my Brother Wind,
He sings more shrill and wild.
What is the sobbing that I hear?
’T is for thy mother, child.
O no, it is my Brother Wind,
He weeps unreconciled.
For now she sleeps, the sweet white flower,
And happy still, and mild
My Brother Wind cries, cries for me,
The lonely little child.

IV

Mayhap I was not mothered
Save in this flower-leaf flesh;
Thus strangely to be brothered —
Caught in the mother-mesh
From blue deep boundless seas of sky,
Where winds float and fly.
Mayhap I was not mothered
Save in this flame-wrought clay;
Thus strangely to be gathered,
Fruit of a wider day,
And poured, an alien unseen wine,
Within this cup of thine.

V

She made my body beautiful,
She moulded me as fair
As lilies by a woodland pool,
She tressed my midnight hair,
She bore me to a green hid vale
And laid me in a grove
Of oak and ash, ’mid aspens pale
And lilies of her love.
She kissed my wide and wondering eyes
To make me wonder-blind.
She kissed my lips — O wild and wise —
To save me from the wind.
She kissed my hair, she kissed my heart,
She kissed my hands, she laid
Swift kisses on my feet that start,
So swift and unafraid.
She kissed me, O she kissed me, O
She tried to make me hers,
To hush me, hap me, hold me so,
From the White Whisperers.
And I would be hers only now
But that the wild wind came
And kissed me once upon the brow
— O hope, desire and dream!

VI

I lay in the meadow
And prayed as I lay
To the lord of the shadow,
The lord of fair day,
The god of white water
And the dark god of earth,
For I am their daughter,
And one with my birth
Rose fear of their power;
So fearful I pray
To the gray gods that lower
And the god of fair day.
And then my soul wakened
And spake to its kind.
(Swift beauty betokened
My brother, the Wind.)
And I lay in the meadow
And laughed as I lay
For he rent the cloud-shadow
From the face of fair day!

VII

Have pity on all things,
Even on the wind that sings.
Often he feels he is alone,
Hearing his sister moan.
Have pity on the bright restless gay
Leaves; they grow weary, even they.
Have pity on the little waves
That are born in their graves.
Have pity on all souls!
Those also who wear aureoles
And shine and stir and hear the wind —
Even they are bound and blind.
(They too who, hearing, shake with fear,
Knowing not the voice they hear;
They too who turn away
And stop their ears with clay.)

VIII

The wind died
In the dead of the night.
He faltered, sighed,
And ceased outright.
I move, I live —
(I live, they say) —
O gray, gray life
With the wind away.
The wind died.
I took my glass
To the fireside.
Gray breath did pass
Across its gray:
I lived, I knew.
O would I were dead,
Or would the wind blew!
The wind died
And Song died too.
Fear, with his bride,
Gray Terror, grew.
I live, I move,
Like a living thing,
But what is the worth
Of such living?

IX

When I lay within the mire —
(O my soul, white flower of fire) —
When I lay there, broken, stained,
No one knew the wind had waned.
Rise, O Wind, I crave thee! Come
From Heaven’s high lit halls, thy home!
Sandal thee and stalk with keen
Sword in thy strong hand unseen!
Rise, O Wind, I crave thee! Call,
Loud through Heaven’s high echoing hall!
See, I rise from out the mire!
(O my soul, white flower of fire!).

X

To be bound so long and now to be free!
(Brother, Brother, hearest thou me?)
The cord is loosened, the arrow sped,
The golden bowl broken, the wild bird fled,
O wild eyrie, to thee!
The clasp of the clay was sealed by a spell;
(Brother, Brother, hearest thou well?)
But a chain for my mind no magic could find
And the wings of my soul were the wings of the wind;
Brother, they bore me to thee!
And now my body lies white on the wave,
(O ivory beauty no wind-wish could save!);
O come, let us sing ere it sinks in the deep,
And pray the sea-sisters to lull it to sleep,
For wakeful it wandered with me.
I would pray the sea-sisters remember its grace,
As I remember its burdening embrace.
O tears and wild laughter, dark pain and mad play!
’T was my friend and my foe when together we lay,
What dreams it hath dreamèd with me!
Then reach me and teach me thy wind-speech again —
Brother, Brother, I’ve lived among men!
Prove me the range of the sea and the sky,
The leagues that I longed for, the heights I would try,
Restore and reveal them to me.
For I prayed but one prayer — incarnate of air,
With Space and with Song and with Silence to lair,
To flee, shod with joy, past the uttermost bars
Of night’s height, on and on up the stair of the stars,
Forever and ever with thee!