Why Moan, Why Wail You, Wind Of Night

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Why moan, why wail you, wind of night,
With such despair, such frenzied madness?
Why is your voice now full of might,
Now piteous and tinged with sadness?
In tongue known to the heart, of pain  
Unknown to it for ever chanting,
At times within it well-nigh frantic
Sounds you awaken and insane.

Sing not, O wind, your fearful song
Of chaos, for the hungry spirit,
Into night's world of shadows flung,
Exults in it and strains to hear it.
The bounds of mortal flesh 'twould fly
And merge  with boundless ocean sweeping.
Take heed! Let slumbering tempests lie:
Beneath them chaos stirs unsleeping.

© Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev