THE THOMAS HARDY PAGE

THE WIND BLEW WORDS

The wind blew words along the skies,

And these it blew to me

Through the wide dusk: "Lift up your eyes,

Behold this troubled tree,

Complaining as it sways and plies;

It is a limb of thee.

"Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round -

Dumb figures, wild and tame,

Yea, too, thy fellows who abound -

Either of speech the same

Or far and strange - black, dwarfed, and browned,

They are stuff of thy own frame."

I moved on in a surging awe

Of inarticulateness

At the pathetic Me I saw

In all his huge distress,

Making self-slaughter of the law

To kill, break, or suppress.

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