The Poetry Corner

The Wind At Night

By Madison Julius Cawein

I. Not till the wildman wind is shrill, Howling upon the hill In every wolfish tree, whose boisterous boughs, Like desperate arms, gesture and beat the night, And down huge clouds, in chasms of stormy white The frightened moon hurries above the house, Shall I lie down; and, deep, Letting the mad wind keep Its shouting revel round me, fall asleep. II. Not till its dark halloo is hushed, And where wild waters rushed, Like some hoofed terror underneath its whip And spur of foam, remains A ghostly glass, hill-framed; whereover stains Of moony mists and rains, And stealthy starbeams, like vague specters, slip; Shall I, with thoughts that take Unto themselves the ache Of silence as a sound, from sleep awake.