They all turned their backs, and stood sullenly mute.

So on it went, capering and playing its pranks:

Whistling with reeds on the broad river’s banks;

Puffing the birds as they sat on the spray,

Or the traveller grave on the king’s highway.

It was not too nice to hustle the bags

Of the beggar, and flutter his dirty rags:

’Twas so bold, that it feared not to play its joke

With the doctor’s wig, or the gentleman’s cloak.

Through the forest it roared, and cried gaily, ‘Now,

You sturdy old oaks, I’ll make you bow!’

And it made them bow without more ado,

Or it cracked their great branches through and through.

Then it rushed like a monster on cottage and farm,

Striking their dwellers with sudden alarm;

And they ran out like bees in a midsummer swarm.

There were dames with their ’kerchiefs tied over their caps,

To see if their poultry were free from mishaps;

The turkeys they gobbled, the geese screamed aloud,

And the hens crept to roost in a terrified crowd;

There was rearing of ladders, and logs laying on

Where the thatch from the roof threatened soon to be gone.

But the wind had passed on, and had met in a lane,

With a schoolboy, who panted and struggled in vain;

For it tossed him, and twirled him, then passed, and he stood,

With his hat in a pool, and his shoe in the mud.

There was a poor man, hoary and old,

Cutting the heath on the open wold –

The strokes of his bill were faint and few,

Ere this frolicsome wind upon him blew;

But behind him, before him, about him it came,

And the breath seemed gone from his feeble frame;

So he sat him down with a muttering tone,

Saying, ‘Plague on the wind! was the like ever known?

But nowadays every wind that blows

Tells one how weak an old man grows!’

But away went the wind in its holiday glee;

And now it was far on the billowy sea,

And the lordly ships felt its staggering blow,

And the little boats darted to and fro,

But lo! it was night, and it sank to rest,

On the sea-bird’s rock, in the gleaming west,

Laughing to think, in its fearful fun,

How little of mischief it had done.

William Howitt

The Windmill

The Windmill

Behold! a giant am I!

Aloft here in my tower,

With my granite jaws I devour

The maize, the wheat, and the rye,

And grind them into flour.

I look down over the farms;

In the fields of grain I see

The harvest that is to be,

And I fling to the air my arms,

For I know it is all for me.

I hear the sound of flails

Far off, from the threshing-floors

In barns, with their open doors,

And the wind, the wind in my sails,

Louder and louder roars.

I stand here in my place,