There, like the wind through woods in riot,
Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I.

In these lines Housman imagines a continuity of human temperament across time: the same restless, forceful “gale of life” that once animated a Roman now blows through the speaker. The wind-in-the-woods simile suggests energy that is natural, involuntary, and disruptive—life as a power that will not let “the tree of man” be still. The closing turn (“Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I”) collapses historical distance, implying that individual identity is less unique than we suppose; what changes are names and eras, not the underlying human drive. The tone is both exultant and fatalistic: vitality is exhilarating, but it also denies peace.