From the Nor’east, Forty

The sirocco blows soft out of Algiers:
it tells a mystic tale, of the streets of the Casbah, pale;
of Arab women, veiled; of the call to prayers, wailed;
of the hand of Allah, the sword; of the life of Mohammed, the Word.

An Arctic gale sweeps from Greenland:
it whispers frigid tales, of glaciers and white whales;
of seas that have no chart, in the places where icebergs start;
of expeditions lost; of snow-plains that n’er have been crossed.

A mountain breeze sighs from Haiti:
it speaks of a green-clad  isle; of dark-skinned girls that smile,
while held high on their heads are baskets of mangoes or breads;
of dark and moonless nights, and secret voodoo rites.

But the winds that lash the Banks:
they keen heroic stories, of schooners, codfish and dories;
of small boats that sailed with the tide, and how men who sailed them have died;
and yet through the whitecaps and foam, they carry warm memories of home.