The wind one morning sprang up from sleep,

Saying, 'Now for a frolic! now for a leap!

Now for a mad-cap, galloping chase!

I'll make a commotion in every place!

So it swept with a bustle right through a great town,

Creaking the signs, and scattering down

Shutters, and whisking, with merciless squalls,

Old women's bonnets  and gingerbread stalls.'

There never was heard a much lustier shout

As the apples and oranges trundled about;

And urchins, that stand with their thievish eyes

Forever on watch, ran off each with a prize.

Then away to the fields it went blustering and humming.

And the cattle all wondered whatever was coming.

It plucked by their tails the grave matronly cows,

Till, offended at such a familiar salute,

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 banks;

Puffing the birds, as they sat on a spray.

Or the traveller grave on the king's highway.

It was not too nice to bustle the bags

Of the beggar and flutter his dirty rags.

'Twas so bold that is feared not to play its joke

With the doctor's wig, and the gentleman's cloak.

Through the forest it roared, and cried gayly, '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 o'er cottage and farm,

Striking their inmates 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 hast in a pool and his shoe in the mind.