The Wind and the Trees

We had a couple of very windy days and nights. I walked inland to escape the onshore gale but even then felt buffeted beyond my comfort zone. The  branches of trees were surging, seething and swaying with astonishing velocity above me. I wondered if anyone had managed to capture this phenomenon in poetry, since it's impossible in a photograph. I was not surprised to find that it was John Clare, that sublime poet of the natural world, who had best succeeded - here with his own words and spellings.


I love the song of tree and wind
How beautiful they sing
The licken on the beach tree rind
E'en beats the flowers of spring

From the southwest sugh sugh it comes
Then whizes round in pleasant hums

It sings the spirit of the storm
The trees with dancing waxes warm
They dance and bow, and dance again
The very trunks, each branch and grain

Shake and dance and wave and bow
In every form no matter how

In every storm they dance on high
The semblance of a stormy sky
Then sob and roar and bend and swee
The semblance of a stormy sea

I love the song of wood and wind
The sobs before its roar behind

I love the stir of flood and tree
'Tis all of natures melody
I love the roaring of the wind
The calm that follows cheers the mind

'Tis like the good mans end of peace
When joys begin and troubles cease.