THE WIND'S SONG

O winds that blow across the sea,
What is the story that you bring?
Leaves clap their hands on every tree
And birds about their branches sing.

You sing to flowers and trees and birds
Your sea-songs over all the land.
Could you not stay and whisper words
A little child might understand?

But though I listen all the day, You never tell me anything

Of father's ship so far away.

Its masts are taller than the trees;
Its sails are silver in the sun;
There's not a ship upon the seas
So beautiful as father's one.

With wings spread out it flies so fast

It leaves the waves all white with foam. Just whisper to me, blowing past, If you have seen it sailing home.

I feel your breath upon my cheek,
And in my hair, and on my brow.
Dear winds, if you could only speak,
I know that you would tell me now.

My father's coming home, you'd say,
With precious presents, one, two, three;
A shawl for mother, beads for May,
And eggs and shells for Rob and me.

The winds sing songs where'er they roam;
The leaves all clap their little hands;
For father's ship is coming home

With wondrous things from foreign lands.

Gabriel Setoun

"WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND?"

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

THE WIND

I saw you toss the kites on high
And blow the birds about the sky;
And all around I heard you pass,
Like ladies' skirts across the grass-
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!

I saw the different things you did,
But always you yourself you hid.
I felt you push, I heard you call,
I could not see yourself at all—

O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!

you that are so strong and cold,
O blower, are you young or old?
Are you a beast of field and tree
Or just a stronger child than me?
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!

Robert Louis Stevenson

GREEN THINGS GROWING

O the green things growing, the green things growing, The faint sweet smell of the green things growing!

I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve,

Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing.

O the fluttering and the pattering of those green things growing!

How they talk each to each, when none of us are knowing; In the wonderful white of the weird moonlight

Or the dim dreamy dawn when the cocks are crowing.

I love, I love them so-my green things growing!
And I think that they love me, without false showing;
For by many a tender touch, they comfort me so much,
With the soft mute comfort of green things growing.

And in the rich store of their blossoms glowing
Ten for one I take they're on me bestowing:
Oh, I should like to see, if God's will it may be,
Many, many a summer of my green things growing!

But if I must be gathered for the angel's sowing,
Sleep out of sight awhile, like the green things growing,
Though dust to dust return, I think I'll scarcely mourn,
If I may change into green things growing.

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

A CHANTED CALENDAR

First came the primrose,
On the bank high,

Like a maiden looking forth
From the window of a tower
When the battle rolls below,
So looked she,

And saw the storms go by.

Then came the wind-flower
In the valley left behind,
As a wounded maiden, pale
With purple streaks of woe,
When the battle has rolled by
Wanders to and fro,

So tottered she,

Dishevelled in the wind.

Then came the daisies,

On the first of May,

Like a bannered show's advance
While the crowd runs by the way,
With ten thousand flowers about them,
They came trooping through the fields.
As a happy people come,

So came they,

As a happy people come

When the war has rolled away,

With dance and tabor, pipe and drum,

And all make holiday.

Then came the cowslip,

Like a dancer in the fair,

She spread her little mat of green,

And on it danced she.

With a fillet bound about her brow,
A fillet round her happy brow,
A golden fillet round her brow,
And rubies in her hair.

Sydney Dobell

BUTTERCUPS

There must be fairy miners
Just underneath the mould,
Such wondrous quaint designers
Who live in caves of gold.

They take the shining metals,
And beat them into shreds;
And mould them into petals,
To make the flowers' heads.

Sometimes they melt the flowers
To tiny seeds like pearls,
And store them up in bowers
For little boys and girls.

And still a tiny fan turns
Above a forge of gold,

To keep, with fairy lanterns,
The world from growing old.

Wilfrid Thorley

TO DAFFODILS

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon.