by Mark van Doren (1894 - 1972)

Dunce's Song
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.

Text Authorship:

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):


Researcher for this page: Garrett Medlock [Guest Editor]

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