The cold March winds are ramping
Like wolves that have snuffed the fold
From the tents of winter’s last encamping,
The steel-gray clouds and the snow peaks, tramping
Across the pitiless wold!
They smite the cheek of the farmer
And the drover’s sturdy boy,
That turn them back, as the iron armor
Sheds from a frigate the shot that would harm her
With only a glow of joy!
They bite at the hooded maiden
Who is hieing her home from school;
But the tingling blood with life-fire laden
Renews in her cheeks the roses of Aidenn,
As she glides o’er the glassy pool!
They howl at the door of the peasant,
And knock at his window-frame,
Where a summer glow is ever present!
In his honest life all days are pleasant!
Old June’s in his hearth-fire flame!
Ha! Winds may howl in their marches
And winnow the woods like chaff;
May wring on their hills the cedars and larches.
And bound the clouds through their dim sky arches:
At their fury the wise can laugh!
But maddened like wolves defeated,
They dash, with a snarling cry,
On the reeling wretch by the way-side seated,
Whom the cup of the mocker has lured and cheated,
And left him alone to die!
The blood from his purpled fingers
Crawls back like a torpid snake;
In the palsied limbs a slow life lingers,
The dulled brain reels, for its warning-bringers
Are drugged that they can not wake!
They snatch at his tattered daughter.
Whose dumb lips ask for bread;
They dash at her bosom like icy water,
Her limbs in their rude clutch shiver and totter,
Since hope in her heart is dead!
They leap through the splintered sashes,
Where his hungry babes complain;
The tatters flutter, a faint glow flashes
From dying brands in the sodden ashes,
And a pale wife groans in pain!
Ah! to man disarmed by his folly
A slave to the blindest power,
The winds are as dirges melancholy,
The sun sheds danger, and clouds drip slowly
With death, in an April shower!
March Winds