| William Wilfred Campbell, comp. The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse. 1913. | | | | Wind | | By William Wilfred Campbell (1861–1918) |
| | | I AM Wind, the deathless dreamer | |
| Of the summer world; | |
| Tranced in snows of shade and shimmer, | |
| On a cloud-scarp curled. | |
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| Fluting through the argent shadow | 5 |
| And the molten shine | |
| Of the golden, lonesome summer | |
| And its dreams divine. | |
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| All unseen, I walk the meadows, | |
| Or I wake the wheat, | 10 |
| Speeding o’er the tawny billows | |
| With my phantom feet. | |
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| All the world’s face, hushed and sober, | |
| Wrinkles where I run; | |
| Turning sunshine into shadow, | 15 |
| Shadow into sun, | |
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| Stirring soft the breast of waters | |
| With my winnowing wings, | |
| Waking the grey ancient wood | |
| From hushed imaginings. | 20 |
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| Where the blossoms drowse in languors, | |
| Or a vagrant sips, | |
| Lifting nodding blade or petal | |
| To my cooling lips; | |
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| Far from gloom of shadowed mountain, | 25 |
| Surge of sounding sea, | |
| Bud and blossom, leaf and tendril, | |
| All are glad of me. | |
| |
| Loosed in sunny deeps of heaven, | |
| Like a dream, I go, | 30 |
| Guiding light my genie-driven | |
| Flocks, in herds of snow;— | |
| |
| Ere I moor them o’er the thirsting | |
| Woods and fields beneath, | |
| Dumbly yearning, from their burning | 35 |
| Dream of parchèd death. | |
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| Not a sorrow do I borrow | |
| From the golden day, | |
| Not a shadow holds the meadow | |
| Where my footsteps stray; | 40 |
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| Light and cool, my kiss is welcome | |
| Under sun and moon, | |
| To the weary vagrant wending | |
| Under parchèd noon; | |
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| To the languid, nodding blossom | 45 |
| In its moonlit dell, | |
| All earth’s children, sad and yearning, | |
| Know and love me well. | |
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| Without passion, without sorrow, | |
| Driven in my dream, | 50 |
| Through the season’s trance of sleeping | |
| Cloud and field and stream,— | |
| |
| Haunting woodlands, lakes and forests, | |
| Seas and clouds impearled, | |
| I am Wind, the deathless dreamer | 55 |
| Of the summer world. | | | | |
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