THE PADDOCK
Blow, blow, aloft, alow!
Giving, taking, I ebb and flow.
Trading, tallying, making weight,
Ever I speed and circulate.
Sent to balance, bidden adjust
Virgin vigour with done-with dust,
Breath unborn with departing breath,
Drouth with blossoming, Life with Death.
Some tempest, half the year away,
And here am I pull’d to the Paddock to-day,
Leaves and waters, with you to play;—
Some calm befallen, a hemisphere hence—
Off! I am required as a recompense.
Yea, blow, blow, wander and blow!
Whither the never-still Summoning summoneth me
Forth, forth on my endless errand I flee.
And where is the travel shall stain, or baffle, or tire
Me, at full flood of my destiny, my desire?
Will’d and willing, eager I speed
As is my fortune, so my need.
Monarch, yet minion, never my own:
Mate of the world, for ever alone:
Free, yet following: blowing, blown:
Call’d from before, sped from behind,
Wander! O would-be wanderer, O must-be wanderer Wind!
Ay! the route is ready, the speeding steady.
A friend, a foe, will I scatter and stow,
Further and foster, threaten and throw.
Here in your place, pretty ones, stay!
Out of my place, into my place, in my place,
180
