e gladness that doth mine;
I spread my wings and stretch my arms
Over a dozen hedged farms;
I breast steep hills, through pine-groves rush,
Rock birds' nests, yet no fledgling crush,
Tossing the grain-fields everywhere,
The trees, the grass, the school-girl's hair,
Whirling away her laugh the while--
(We breezes love the children's smile);
And then I lag and wander down
Among the roofs and dust of town,
Bearing cool draughts from lake and moor
To fan the faces of the poor,
While sick babes, stifled half to death,
Grow rosy at my country breath.
I lent a shoulder to your ship;
I moaned with that sad hermit's lip;
I helped disperse the dragon's mist;
And some bell's voice, 'twas yours I wist,
I handed up to winds on high
Who wing a loftier flight than I.
But, hark! a rider leaves the vale.

CLOUD
Ah, yes, I catch the gleam of mail.

RANDOLPH
O speak again ye voiced ghosts!
I heard afar your cheerful boasts.
And, if I doubt not, ye are they
That here have met me many a day.

WIND
We are they.

CLOUD, (echoing)
We are they.
But whither now doth Randolph stray,
And why the mail, and why the steed?

RANDOLPH
This is my father's mail indeed,
Bequeathed with message to his son:
"Stand straight in it and yield to none."

WIND
But whither off and why away?

RANDOLPH
Off to the world; I cannot stay--
That world I have so often viewed
Here from this upper solitude--
This bulwark barring strife and trade.
Love calls me off. I love a maid,
Loving her silently and long,
Learning for her to hate the wrong,
Learning for her to seek the right,
To hew at sloth and faint resolve
And thoughts that round but self revolve,
And pray for grace and virtue--wings
That bear men to the highest things,
Enwrapt and rising into light.
For her, for her, O Cloud and Wind!
I trained my limbs and taught my mind,
Ran, wrestled, clomb, and learned to bend
The cross-bow with each village friend;
And by my hermit-guardian spent
The earliest dimness morning lent,
And the faint torch that evening bore,
In science and in saintly lore,
Reading the stars and signs of rain,
Noting each tree and herb and grain;
Each bird that flutters through the leaves,
Each beast, each fish that green lake cleaves,
The curious deeds Devotion paints
In missals and in lives of saints,
And every olden subtle trick
Of grammar, logic, rhetoric.
But most on chivalry I turned
A torrent eagerness, and burned
To hear