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 to-day?"
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 ruefulest tone:
"Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo! Yoooooooo!" |