A sky of blue and grey;
Some stormy clouds that play
At scurrying up with ragged edge, then laughing blow away,
Just leaving in their trail
Some snatches of a gale;
To whistling summer winds we lift a single daring sail.

O! wind so sweet and swift,
O! danger-freighted gift
Bestowed on Erie with her waves that foam and fall and lift,
We laugh in your wild face,
And break into a race
With flying clouds and tossing gulls that weave and interlace.

THE FLIGHT OF THE CROWS

The autumn afternoon is dying o’er
  The quiet western valley where I lie
Beneath the maples on the river shore,
  Where tinted leaves, blue waters and fair sky
  Environ all; and far above some birds are flying by

To seek their evening haven in the breast
  And calm embrace of silence, while they sing
Te Deums to the night, invoking rest
  For busy chirping voice and tired wing—­
  And in the hush of sleeping trees their sleeping cradles swing.

In forest arms the night will soonest creep,
  Where sombre pines a lullaby intone,
Where Nature’s children curl themselves to sleep,
  And all is still at last, save where alone
  A band of black, belated crows arrive from lands unknown.

Strange sojourn has been theirs since waking day,
  Strange sights and cities in their wanderings blend
With fields of yellow maize, and leagues away
  With rivers where their sweeping waters wend
  Past velvet banks to rocky shores, in canyons bold to end.

O’er what vast lakes that stretch superbly dead,
  Till lashed to life by storm-clouds, have they flown? 
In what wild lands, in laggard flight have led
  Their aerial career unseen, unknown,
  ’Till now with twilight come their cries in lonely monotone?

The flapping of their pinions in the air
  Dies in the hush of distance, while they light
Within the fir tops, weirdly black and bare,
  That stand with giant strength and peerless height,
  To shelter fairy, bird and beast throughout the closing night.

Strange black and princely pirates of the skies,
  Would that your wind-tossed travels I could know! 
Would that my soul could see, and, seeing, rise
  To unrestricted life where ebb and flow
  Of Nature’s pulse would constitute a wider life below!

Could I but live just here in Freedom’s arms,
  A kingly life without a sovereign’s care! 
Vain dreams!  Day hides with closing wings her charms,
  And all is cradled in repose, save where
  Yon band of black, belated crows still frets the evening air.

MOONSET

Idles the night wind through the dreaming firs,
That waking murmur low,
As some lost melody returning stirs
The love of long ago;
And through the far, cool distance, zephyr fanned. 
The moon is sinking into shadow-land.