C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857–1940)

THE WIND of death, that softly blows

The last warm petal from the rose,

The last dry leaf from off the tree,

To-night has come to breathe on me.

There was a time I learned to hate,

As weaker mortals learn to love;

The passion held me fixed as fate,

Burned in my veins early and late—

But now a wind falls from above—

The wind of death, that silently

Enshroudeth friend and enemy.

There was a time my soul was thrilled

By keen ambition’s whip and spur:

My master forced me where he willed,

And with his power my life was filled:

But now the old-time pulses stir

How faintly in the wind of death,

That bloweth lightly as a breath!

And once, but once, at Love’s dear feet

I yielded strength and life and heart;

His look turned bitter into sweet,

His smile made all the world complete—

The wind blows loves like leaves apart—

The wind of death, that tenderly

Is blowing ’twixt my love and me.

O wind of death, that darkly blows

Each separate ship of human woes

Far out on a mysterious sea,

I turn, I turn my face to thee.