Fierce Wind Of November

Crossing the infinite length of the moorland,
Here comes the wind,
The wind with its trumpet that Heralds November;
Endless and infinite, crossing the downs,
Here comes the wind
That teareth himself and doth fiercely dismember;
Which heavy breath turbulent smiting the towns,
The savage wind comes, the fierce wind of November.

Each bucket of iron at the wells of the farmyard,
Each bucket and pulley, it creaks and wails;
By cisterns of farmyards, the pulleys and pails
They creak and they cry,
The whole of sad death in their melancholy.

The wind, it sends scuddling dead leaves from the birches
Along o'er the water, the wind of November,
The savage fierce wind;
The boughs of the trees for the birds' nests it searches,
To bind them and grind.
The wind, as though rasping down iron, grates past,
And furious and fast, from afar combs the cold
And white avalanches of winter the old.
The savage wind combs them, so furious and fast.
The wind of November.

From each miserable shed
The patched garret - windows wave wild overhead
Their foolish, poor tatters of paper and glass
As the savage fierce wind of November doth pass!
And there on its hill
Of dingy and dun - colored turf, the black mill,
Swift up from below, through the empty air slashing,
Swift down form above, like a lightning - stroke flashing,
The black mill, so sinister, moweth the wind.
The savage, fierce wind of November.

The old, ragged thatches that squat round their steeple,
Are raised on their roof poles and fall with a clap,
In the wind, the old thatches and penthouses flap,
In the wind of November, so savage and hard.
The crosses -- and they are the arms of the dead people --
The crosses that stand in the narrow church yard
Fall prone on the sod
Like some great flight of black, in the acre of God.

The wind of November.
Have you met him, the savage wind, do you remember?
Did he pass you so fleet,
-- Where yon at the cross, the three hundred roads meet --
With distressfulness panting, and wailing with a cold?
Yea, he breeds fears and puts all things to flight,
Did you see him, that night
When the moon he o'erthrew, when the villages, old
In their rot and decay, past endurance and spent,
Cried, wailing like beasts, 'neath the hurricane bent?

Here comes the wind howling, that heralds dark weather,
The wind blowing infinite over the heather.
The wind with its trumpets that Harold November.

- Emily Verhaeren 

The Wind 1915