Listen! The vacant Northwind rides and swells
Off the mountain, driving a foul winter rain.
Whipped branches snap and crash. A tree falls,
Dragging its leaves. And now it's dark again.
How can I read this rage of rain and wind
As the blank nightmare of a windy mind?
Light rips the sky. I do not dream this fear
I heard a tree crack in that strike, saw the plain
Swept level, instantly wet, and even now hear
Thunder. Still in the dark I find the profane
Facts. Where am I among them? This
Only I know: More than myself is.
What is out here, haunting the splitting storm?
Why do black branches swim in the pouring air?
Adverse and animate, does the wind scream
To be felt in the dark as fact? Is it mere weather
Wrung from indifferent nature? Or is it of God?
I hazard a final darkness in this dread.
I have no edge against the storm, no ward,
And night comes on. If it was out of my fear
I made God, knowing no human word
Could save my soul or charm the rushing air,
What shall I turn to in the turning wind
Outside of earth, outside of my mind?