Proud Music of the Storm by Jake Runestad Lyrics
Proud music of the storm!
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies!
Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains!
Blending, with Nature’s rhythmus, all the tongues of nations;
You undertone of rivers, roar of pouring cataracts;
Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me powerless
Entering my lonesome slumber-chamber–Why have you seiz’d me?
Ah, from a little child
Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music;
My mother’s voice, in lullaby;
The solemn hymns and masses, rousing adoration
All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals
Song of lost love–the torch of youth and life quench’d in despair
The measureless sweet vocalists of ages
Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves;
Give me to hold all sounds
Fill me with all the voices of the universe
The tempests, waters, winds—operas and chants—marches and dances
Pour in–for I would take them all
Then I woke softly
And pausing, questioning the music of my dream
I said to my silent, curious Soul
Go forth
Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real
What thou hast heard, O Soul, was not the sound of winds
Nor dream of raging storm
But, to a new rhythmus fitted for thee
Poems, bridging the way from Life to Death
Vaguely wafted in night air, uncaught, unwritten
Which, let us go forth in the bold day, and write
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies!
Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains!
Blending, with Nature’s rhythmus, all the tongues of nations;
You undertone of rivers, roar of pouring cataracts;
Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me powerless
Entering my lonesome slumber-chamber–Why have you seiz’d me?
Ah, from a little child
Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music;
My mother’s voice, in lullaby;
The solemn hymns and masses, rousing adoration
All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals
Song of lost love–the torch of youth and life quench’d in despair
The measureless sweet vocalists of ages
Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves;
Give me to hold all sounds
Fill me with all the voices of the universe
The tempests, waters, winds—operas and chants—marches and dances
Pour in–for I would take them all
Then I woke softly
And pausing, questioning the music of my dream
I said to my silent, curious Soul
Go forth
Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real
What thou hast heard, O Soul, was not the sound of winds
Nor dream of raging storm
But, to a new rhythmus fitted for thee
Poems, bridging the way from Life to Death
Vaguely wafted in night air, uncaught, unwritten
Which, let us go forth in the bold day, and write