The Night Wind
Have you ever heard the wind go “Yooooo”?‘T is a pitiful sound to hear!It seems to chill you through and throughWith a strange and speechless fear.‘T is the voice of the night that broods outsideWhen folk should be asleep,And many and many’s the time I’ve criedTo the darkness brooding far and wideOver the land and the deep:“Whom do you want, O lonely night,That you wail the long hours through?”And the night would say in its ghostly way:“Yoooooooo!Yoooooooo!Yoooooooo!”
My mother told me long ago(When I was a little tad)That when the night went wailing so,Somebody had been bad;And then, when I was snug in bed,Whither I had been sent,With the blankets pulled up round my head,I’d think of what my mother’d said,And wonder what boy she meant!And “Who’s been bad to-day?” I’d askOf the wind that hoarsely blew,And the voice would say in its meaningful way:“Yoooooooo!Yoooooooo!Yoooooooo!”
That this was true I must allow—You’ll not believe it, though!Yes, though I’m quite a model now,I was not always so.And if you doubt what things I say,Suppose you make the test;Suppose, when you’ve been bad some dayAnd up to bed are sent awayFrom mother and the rest—Suppose you ask, “Who has been bad?”And then you’ll hear what’s true;For the wind will moan in its ruefulest tone:“Yoooooooo!Yoooooooo!Yoooooooo!”