And do you feel that it is home, The City we call heaven? Ah! were they glad to have you come, My little maid of seven?
Methinks when you stand all in white To learn each sweet new duty, Some eye will note with keen delight Your radiance and beauty.
And when your laughter softly rings Out where God’s streets do glisten, The angels fair will fold their wings And still their song to listen.
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O Wind you come singing, singing, Gaily about the eaves, I think you are bringing, bringing, The secret of the leaves; Secrets you learned in the Maytime, Down in the wood so cool, Learned in the night-time and day-time, By bank, and brook, and pool.
O wind, you go shrilling, shrilling, Over the chimneys high, While the clouds are softly spilling Rain on the gardens dry: ’Tis autumn, the wild new-comer Has taught you how to sing, But the voice of the sweet dead summer Through it all seems to ring.
O wind, you are railing, railing, ’Tis the voice of a shrew, Wearied at length, and failing, Then beginning anew: Here you come sighing, sighing, Down to my casement wide, A moment and you are flying Away in pique and pride.
I love your chasing and panting, I love the melody, That you go so gaily chanting To earth, and sky, and sea. Our birds go southward soaring, When signs of frost appear, You, with your sighing and roaring, Sing to us all the year.
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You know how it is--you have had the gain, The sweetness and pleasures of life, I the fruitless striving, the heat to attain, The toil, the failure, the strife.
Then we chance to come by the will of fate To the warmth of one woman’s eyes, And fate decrees it is not too late To give me a great surprise.
And the woman turns with matchless grace The bloom of her tender cheek, And her red lips smiling--her glorious face, Her glance so loving and meek.
To me--to the penniless bankrupt one, And I find my portion at last, And heaven as real, when all is done, As the hell of the bitter past.
The glories of earth are but chaff in the wind, The riches of earth but a song, Now listen, my brother, I think you will find You have tried to do me a wrong.
You had all that to me had been denied, I starved while you feasted well, You have fame, and a hundred things beside, You have watched your coffers swell.