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[BostonTeaParty]

A friend sent this to me this evening, and it's good enough to share here.

The Night Wind

By Eugene Field

Have you ever heard the wind go "Yooooo"?
'Tis a pitiful sound to hear!
It seems to chill you through and through
With a strange and speechless fear.
'Tis the voice of the night that broods outside
When folk should be asleep,
And many and many's the time I've cried
To the darkness brooding far and wide
Over 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 today?" I'd ask
Of 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 day
And up to bed are sent away
From 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 ruefullest tone:
"Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!"

Eugene Field (1850-1895) was born in Saint Louis and attended William's College in Massachusetts. Following that he went on to the University of
Missouri where he was to meet his future wife, Julia Comstock, who he married when she was sixteen. They went on to have eight children, while he dabbled in various jobs and also worked successfully as a journalist. Eventually writing his own popular column for the Chicago Morning News. He is best remembered as a writer of uplifting childrens poetry, and as something of a maverick spirit.

[Bert & Sully]

[img]graemlins/wavin.gif[/img] Thanks for the American Lit. lesson Nancy. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]