A Ballad Romantically Restored

A Ballad Romantically Restored

For Paul Fry

Westron Wynd when will thou blow,
The small rain down can rain
Christ if my love were in my armes,
And I in my bed againe.

Then up he rose upon the heath
So dry all summer long,
His love lay dreaming, far away—
Nor heard his wearied song,

Nor saw him stride toward the setting sun
Leaving far behind
The blasted east, troubled and plain,
Beclouded and unkind,

Nor felt the beat of his anxious heart,
The touch of his distant hand,
As she lay shivering in her bed
In an unpromised land.

He gathered up his heavy harp
Whose strings were weak and slack,
And sighing like a dying wind,
He slung it on his back;

He seized his never-flowering staff,
And with a heavy heart
Set out upon the narrow way
Where two paths forked apart

And to the right lay the darkling wood
Which strips of all who enter
Memories of where they had been,
Like leaves plucked down by winter;

And to the left lay the gleaming field
Which hides in its golden floor
The memories of where one is,
What one is headed for.

And straight ahead where the path died out
A steep hill slowly rose,
And at its top a silent spot
Where the air was in repose,

Where no wind blew through his silent harp
Nor thrummed its slackened strings,
Though it plucked the branches of the trees
With thousands of unseen wings.

And when he gained that silent spot
He gazed toward the faraway
And bitterly unpromised land
Where, shivering, she lay

But saw no more than the prostrate earth
Maimed by occasional hills,
And felt no more than the warm grey air
Whose very silence chills.

And there he called to the wind again
And again he made his plea
Without the sounds of bird or brook
To lend some melody:

Northron wind when will thou sweep
Away the feverish air?
But no wind blew through his silent harp
Nor thrummed the strands of his hair.

Eastern wind when will thou bring
A message from her to me?
But the east wind answered not a word
As it blew from the eastern sea.

Southern wind where hast thou fled
From dale and lake and hill?
O rare is the good wind that blows
No one any ill,
And the knowing wind with a will to do
One well is rarer still.

But no wind blew through his silent harp
Nor caused the boughs to moan,
He was left trembling on that hill
Unanswered and alone.

Then down he went and many a mile
He strode along the path,
Heedless of the sweltering sun
And the great rain's wrath.

And now he came to a narrow lake
Girt by a shelf of stone,
Its surface mirrored nothing, its depths
Returned an unwindy moan:

Dark and still are my silent deeps
Hiding all images there
That first alight on my glittering face
Reflecting but empty air

Where she is and how she fares
Cannot be seen from here
As you sit alone on a shelf of stone
And your hope dries into fear.

Could you but hear the talk of the winds
You could not understand:
But know that she lies alone and ill
In an unpromised land.

Alone and ill in a goatherd's hovel
Along a mountain path
Raving with merciless fever and chills,
Racked by the four wind's wrath

Herself unknowing of where you are
Or how she had come to lie
Alone with only a muttering crone
Waiting for her to die.

Call then no more to the deafened winds
And seek no more to know
Where to find her, even in what
Direction you must go.

With never a word in answer then
He knew, by the water's side,
That the paths toward only nowhere
With emptiness to guide,
Could take him to her who...