The Wind one morning sprang up from sleep,
Saying, “Now for a frolic! now for a leap!
Now for a mad-cap galloping chase!
I ’ll make a commotion in every place!”
So it swept with a bustle right through a great town,
Creaking the signs, and scattering down
Shutters; and whisking, with merciless squalls,
Old women’s bonnets and gingerbread...
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Who has not dreamed a world of bliss
On a bright sunny noon like this,
Couched by his native brook’s green maze,
With comrade of his boyish days,
While all around them seemed to be
Just as in joyous infancy?
Who has not loved, at such an hour,
Upon that heath, in birchen bower,
Lulled in the poet’s dreamy mood,
Its wild... -
And is the swallow gone?
Who beheld it?
Which way sailed it?
Farewell bade it none?No mortal saw it go;—
But who doth hear
Its summer cheer
As it flitteth to and fro?So the freed spirit flies!
From its surrounding clay
It steals away
Like the swallow from the skies....