Love-Songs of Childhood

<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"></SPAN></p> <h2> THE NIGHT WIND </h2> <p>Have you ever heard the wind go "Yooooo"?<br/> 'T is a pitiful sound to hear!<br/> It seems to chill you through and through<br/> With a strange and speechless fear.<br/> 'T is the voice of the night that broods outside<br/> When folk should be asleep,<br/> And many and many's the time I've cried<br/> To the darkness brooding far and wide<br/> Over the land and the deep:<br/> "Whom do you want, O lonely night,<br/> That you wail the long hours through?"<br/> And the night would say in its ghostly way:<br/> "Yoooooooo!<br/> Yoooooooo!<br/> Yoooooooo!"<br/> My mother told me long ago<br/> (When I was a little tad)<br/> That when the night went wailing so,<br/> Somebody had been bad;<br/> And then, when I was snug in bed,<br/> Whither I had been sent,<br/> With the blankets pulled up round my head,<br/> I'd think of what my mother'd said,<br/> And wonder what boy she meant!<br/> And "Who's been bad to-day?" I'd ask<br/> Of the wind that hoarsely blew,<br/> And the voice would say in its meaningful way:<br/> "Yoooooooo!<br/> Yoooooooo!<br/> Yoooooooo!"<br/> That this was true I must allow&mdash;<br/> You'll not believe it, though!<br/> Yes, though I'm quite a model now,<br/> I was not always so.<br/> And if you doubt what things I say,<br/> Suppose you make the test;<br/> Suppose, when you've been bad some day<br/> And up to bed are sent away<br/> From mother and the rest&mdash;<br/> Suppose you ask, "Who has been bad?"<br/> And then you'll hear what's true;<br/> For the wind will moan in its ruefulest tone:<br/> "Yoooooooo!<br/> Yoooooooo!<br/> Yoooooooo!"<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />