LXXXVII. THE WIND AND THE WIRES.
A QUESTION AND REPLY.
I. The Question.
“I wonder,” said a little child
That frolicked by the way,
“Whether the winds that wander wild,
Have anything to say?
Whether they talk, or sigh, or sing,
Or strike the flats and sharps
Upon the telegraphic string,
Like fingers upon harps?”
II. The Reply.
“Come hither, hither! maiden mine!
And if you seek to know
Why vagrant winds in shade or shine
Make music as they go,
And what they say to the answering wires,
As o'er the chords they sweep,
Hopes, fancies, prophecies, desires,
Or memories fond and deep:
III.
“I'll tell you truly what I think
And fain would understand,
Things verging on the unknown brink
Of the dim and shadowy land;
Things of the present or the past,
Or of the days to be,
Beautiful all, but vague and vast,
As veiled infinity.
IV.
“They seem to say, if I hear aright,
In murmuring rise or fall,
That Nature's law is Life and Light,
And Love the lord of all;
That silent skies have power of speech,
And that the earth and stars
Hold high communion each with each,
From all their whirling cars.
V.
“Inaudible to human ears
Is their angelic song,
Which sounds for ever through the spheres,
That know nor short, nor long,
Nor time, nor distance, up nor down,
Nor fixity of place,
The gems in God's eternal crown,
That flash through endless space.
VI.
“I listen to the chanted prayer,
And three short words reveal
The secret which the winds declare
And strong in faith I feel.
Echoes assured, though faint and dim,
That reach us from above,
Tones of the everlasting hymn
That tells us ‘God is Love.’”
