by Mark van Doren (1894 - 1972)

Language: English 
The wind that comes, the wind that goes,
Never tells me what it knows.
The wind is witness of all things
Of water's birth, of Saturn's rings,
Of sin's undoing, of love's laws,
And revolutions without cause
But still my face is famine lean;
The wind that sees cannot be seen.
If I could turn a sudden head, 
sidewise, perhaps, as the wind sped
And its dark edges rippled by, 
I might grow wise enough to die.
But here I stand and only know:
Wind come, wind go.

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Composition:

    Set to music by John Woods Duke (1899 - 1984), "Dunce's Song", 1968, published 1982 [ medium voice and piano ], San Antonio, TX: Southern Music Co. (2001)

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.


Researcher for this page: Garrett Medlock [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2019-04-18
Line count: 14
Word count: 88