June prairie winds have not any competitor. This may be the love of 

 my lifetime veering my judgment, though I incline to believe this is the 

 judgment of a balanced and an equal mind. The prairie wind, as I tell 

 you, has a witchery quite beyond the telling of any man. There have 

 I walked along the shores of summer twilight as on the shores of blue 

 and beautiful Galilee, and caressing, like an angel's hand, went the dear 

 wind, and in it a voice, half whisper and half dream, its touch, like the 

 shadow-touch of a fond hand passing across you, yet scarcely touching 

 you; the hush, and after that the slow streaming wind, like a breath 

 from heaven upon a pilgrimage across the spaces, so remote its origin 

 appeared; and journeying not any whither, yet everywhere and in no 

 haste, loverlike loving to linger for another kiss such a wind withal 

 as one might love to have kiss him on the face that evening, when, 

 after a long journey, with bleeding feet, he walked in through some 

 postern gate out on the fields of heaven sown to asphodels, and dim 

 lights and violets and immortelles. Such is the twilight summer wind 

 in Kansas when the prairie grasses stoop a little to let the zephyrs by. 

 To feel this necromancy once is worth a pilgrimage; seeing it will 

 endure among the luculent recollections of a happy life. 



" The wind to-night is cool and free, 

 The wind to-night is westerly, 

 Sweeping in from the plains afar, 

 Sweet and faint. 



My thoughts to-night are far and free, 

 My thoughts to-night are westerly; 

 Sweeping out on the plains afar, 

 Where roses grow and grasses are. 

 My heart to-night is wild and free, 

 My heart to-night is westerly," 



-JOHN NORTHERN HILLIARD. 



George Macdonald has felt the heavenly hill- 

 winds blow: 



"0 wind of God that bio west in the mind, 

 Blow, blow and wake the gentle spring in me ; 

 Blow, swifter blow, a strong, warm summer wind, 

 Till all the flowers with eyes come out to see, 

 Blow till the fruit hangs red on every tree." 



Blow, wind of God! 



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