Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse

Wind

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.

Fluting through the argent shadow

And the molten shine

Of the golden, lonesome summer

And its dreams divine.

All unseen, I walk the meadows,

Or I wake the wheat,

Speeding o’er the tawny billows

With my phantom feet.

All the world’s face, hushed and sober,

Wrinkles where I run;

Turning sunshine into shadow,

Shadow into sun,

Stirring soft the breast of waters

With my winnowing wings,

Waking the grey ancient wood

From hushed imaginings.

Where the blossoms drowse in languors,

Or a vagrant sips,

Lifting nodding blade or petal

To my cooling lips;

Far from gloom of shadowed mountain,

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,

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

Dream of parchèd death.

Not a sorrow do I borrow

From the golden day,

Not a shadow holds the meadow

Where my footsteps stray;

Light and cool, my kiss is welcome

Under sun and moon,

To the weary vagrant wending

Under parchèd noon;

To the languid, nodding blossom

In its moonlit dell,

All earth’s children, sad and yearning,

Know and love me well.

Without passion, without sorrow,

Driven in my dream,

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

Of the summer world.