University of Virginia Library

How soothingly, to close the sultry day,
Comes the sweet breeze from off the murmuring waves,
That break away in music!—and I feel
As a new spirit were within my veins
And a new life in nature. I awake
From the deep weight of weariness that fell,
Pall-like, upon my spirit as my frame,
Making the sense of helplessness a pain,
Even to the soul;—a fresher pulse of life
Throbs quickly through each vein and artery,
And a new wing, a livelier nerve and strength,
Kindle the languid spirit into play.

Oh! generous nature, this is then thy boon,
These airs that come with evening—these sweet spells
That glide into the bosom with the embrace,
Whose very touch is life, and on the frame,
O'erborne and humbled by the oppressive weight
Of this fierce August atmosphere, bestow'st
A sense as precious as the boon that takes
The captive from his dungeon, and provides
The wings for his departure to free realms
Where no oppression harbors. Oh! I lift
My brow, as with a consciousness of power
I had not known before. I drink a joy
Most like a rapture, from each gushing air
That rustles and ruffles over the green shrub
And the gay orange, late so motionless,
That half obscure my window. Precious airs,
Full of delicious affluence, flow on
With wings that beat the drowsy atmosphere,
Until, in emulous murmur like your own,
It mates with ye in anthem, such as thrills
The Atlantic, till each billow takes a voice,
And echoes the deep chant.
Ye come! I feel
Your wings in playful office all about me,
Lifting the moisten'd hair upon my brows,
As if some spirit fann'd me. Is it not
A spirit, thus wrought from subtlest elements,
Child of the storm, perchance of ocean born,
But with commission sweet to check its sire
And soothe his rage to fondness? Thou persuad'st
His passions to repose beside the sea,
And chid'st his billows. With a sportive play
Thou steal'st the freshening vigor from his waves,
And bear'st it to the fainting on the waste
Where other wings are fire, and nature droops
Amidst her richest treasures.
Ah! how sweet
That fervent gush that shook apart the boughs,
And made the orange quiver beneath the eaves,
Even to its odorous roots.
Had I the voice
To mingle with that mighty chant, and grow
With its caprices flexible—now borne
A torrent through the void, and now a sigh,
Drooping with folded wing beside the couch,
As glad but gentle in the duteous office,
That soothes even while it stirs! Again the strain
Swelling in gradual volume, till the burst
Mocks the cathedral anthem, and rolls on,
Precursor of new billows of proud song
That grow to mountains on the beaten beach,
Suddenly to subside in the great deeps
That sent them first abroad. How lowlily
The murmurs waken now, and now the voice
Sinks audibly, with seeming consciousness:—
As one, a maid, that falters in her sports,
Steals back with sweet timidity of step,
As fearing that, in very guilelessness,
Her play hath been too wild; and now, as bold,
By truer thought, that forward glides again,
Renewing dance and song, surpassing still,
With each fresh effort, the repeated grace.
How wild that sudden gust—how sweet that breath
That seem'd to borrow music from the groves
Of Paphos, kindling to an amorous mood
The sense so lately dull! Alas! it shrinks!
The breeze's virtue is not constancy!—
What gay caprice!—but hence its secret fervor,
The charm that piques to renovate the heart,
And cools to fan its fires. It shrinks away
To gather up new strength. Subdued and awed,
It wantons forth at moments—a soft breath,
That whispers at the lattice—then creeps in
As doubtful of permission:—to be seen
Swelling the shrinking drapery of the couch,
Then melting into silence. Now, again,
It comes, and with a perfume in its breath,
Caught up from spicy gardens. The fair maid
Whose roses thus yield tribute to the march
Of that wild rover, guesses not the thief,
Whose fierce embrace thus robs them of their youth,
And virgin treasure—leaving them at morn
To weep that eager, fond soliciting,
They knew not to resist. Yet I rejoice
That they are thus despoil'd. 'Twere an ill wind
That brought to none its treasure. Is it not
A loving providence that thus provides
With blessing such as this, the unfavor'd one
Who else had never known it? In my cot,
Who sees the precious flowers of foreign growth,
From whose unfolding bosoms, this wild thief
Drinks the aroma to bestow on me?
My lordly neighbor's palace frowns me down,
His walls shut out my footsteps—his great gates
Open not to bid me enter, and mine eyes
Catch but faint glimpses of that prisoner realm,
His floral Harem, where his flowers but fade,
Having no proper worshipper. Yet in vain
His stone precautions and his iron gates,
Against my Ariel, my tricksy spirit,
That comes to me again with sweets so laden
As half to check his flight.
My precious breeze,
Misfortune well may love thee. Thou hast fled
The gayest regions. The high palaces,
Fair groves and gardens of nice excellence,—
The pride of power—the pageantry and pomp
That gild ambition and conceal its cares,—
Could not detain thee! Thou hast fled them all,
And, like an angel, still on blessing bent,
Hast come to cheer the lonely. It is meet
Thy welcome should be lavish like thyself.
Thou art no flatterer, and thou shouldst not creep
Through a close lattice with but half thy train,
When I would gather all of thee, and wrap
Thy draperies about me, as a robe
Dear as the first dews of the embracing spring
To the young buds of nature.
Sweet, oh! sweet,
Thy play about my brows. Thy whispers tell
Of songs in tree-tops when the forest pines
Give shelter, 'neath their ample and green boughs
In dark and mighty colonnades, to airs
That had no refuge else. They whisper me
A music such as glads the o'erladen heart,
Subdued, yet sleepless, fever'd with the heat
Of the long day in summer. Dear the dream
Thy service brings me. The still vexing care
Of body sleepless, that still troubles mind,
And makes one long commotion in the brain,
Grows soothed beneath thy ministry; and now,
Slumbers so coy, and woo'd so long in vain,
Are wrapping me at last. I will lie down
Beneath my window. There shall be no bar
To thy free entrance. Thou wilt linger here,
And with thy wings above my wearied brow,
Will put aside the masses of my hair
With a mysterious kindness—'till my sleep
Shall seem to me, in dreams which thou wilt shape,
Hallow'd by Love's officious tenderness,
And watch'd by one, the heart's ideal beauty,
Whose smile shall be a treasure like thine own,
Though never, in the experience of the day,
It finds the mortal match for my desire.