The kiss of the wind that I love best,

Has the tang of the open sea,

Oh, the warm moist air that breathes the west,

Is the wind that sets me free;

Where a man may go to the farthest shore,

Yet return by a different route,

Where the wheel may turn neither north nor south,

As he sails to the siren’s lute.

Aye, the west wind’s drift brings the ocean lift,

With its mournful siren sigh.

Let my spirit free on the western sea,

When it’s time for the last goodbye.

But the eastern breeze sings the Viking song,

Where a man may yet be king,

Though it blows so cold from the vicious steppe,

And it mourns for the Arctic ring.

It’s a league or more to the neighbor’s door,

Where the life is weather run,

But a man may sleep by a ten league moat,

Till his life’s complete and done.

And the east wind dear has a message clear,

That a roving man will heed,

For its crisp cold song with the message strong,

Is a pledge for the land you need.

The southern squall is the plunder wind,

And the spoils of war are sloth,

It’s a hammock wind and the watch is charged,

With a care worn eye and oath;

For the warm wind blows from a southern clime,

Where the pirate rover, priest,

With his enterprise and their bible lies,

Break the hearts of the men they fleece.

Oh, the Southern wind is a warm sweet wind,

With a perfume breathing spice,

And it beckons me to the Coral Sea,

And the lure of Paradise.

But the northern wind is a biting wind,

For it flirts with the Arctic waste,

Where the days are short and are bitter cold,

And the sun sinks down in haste.

There a man may go to his rendezvous,

In defeat to a frozen death;

“I have searched for myself not an earthly end.”

Is the curse on his dying breath.

So give me the kiss of the warmer wind,

And the tang of the open sea,

Oh, the soft moist air that breathes the west,

Is the wind that sets me free.

The Poetry of Michael Walsh