[Page 91]

TO THE WINDS.

1 Viewless, through heavn's vast vault, your course ye steer,
2 Unknown from whence ye come, or whither go!
3 Mysterious pow'rs! I hear ye murmur low,
4 'Till swells your loud gust on my startled ear,
5 And, awful! seems to say — some God is near!
6 I love to list' your midnight voices float
7 In the dread storm that o'er the ocean rolls,
8 And, while their charm the angry wave controuls,
9 Mix with its sullen roar, and sink remote:
10 Then, rising in the pause, a sweeter note, —
11 The dirge of spirits, who your deeds bewail, —
12 A sweeter note, oft swells, while sleeps the gale!
[Page 92]
13 But soon, ye sightless pow'rs! your rest is o'er:
14 Solemn and slow ye rise upon the air,
15 Speak in the shrouds, and bid the sea-boy fear;
16 And the faint-warbled dirge — is heard no more!
17 Oh! then I deprecate your awful reign! —
18 The loud lament yet bear not on your breath!
19 Bear not the crash of bark far on the main;
20 Bear not the cry of men, who cry in vain, —
21 The crew's dread chorus sinking into death!
22 Oh! give not these, ye pow'rs — I ask alone,
23 As, 'rapt, I climb these dark romantic steeps —
24 The elemental war, the billow's moan:
25 I ask the still, sweet tear, that list'ning Fancy weeps.

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Title (in Source Edition): TO THE WINDS.
Author: Ann Radcliffe (née Ward)
Themes:
Genres: address

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Radcliffe, Ann Ward, 1764-1823. The Poems of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe. London: printed by and for J. Smith, Princes Street, 1816, pp. 91-92. 118p. [Radcliffe's poems only, pp. 1-95] (Page images digitized from a copy held at the National Library of the Netherlands.)

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