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Virginalia ; or, songs of my summer nights

A Gift of Love for the Beautiful

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THE WIND.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

THE WIND.

Thou wringest, with thy invisible hand, the foam
Out of the emerald drapery of the sea,
Beneath whose foldings lies the Sea-Nymph's home—
Lifted, to make it visible, by thee;
Till thou art exiled, earthward, from the maine,
To cool the parched tongue of the Earth with rain.
Thy viewless wing sweeps, with its tireless flight,
Whole Navies from their boundings on the waves—
Wrapping the canvas, pregnant with thy might,
Around the seamen in their watery graves!
Till thou dost fall asleep upon the grass,
And then the ocean is as smooth as glass.
Thou art the Gardner of the flowery earth—
The Sower in the spring-time of the year—
Clearing plantations, in thy goings forth,
Amid the wilderness, where all is drear—
Scattering ten thousand giant oaks around,
Like playthings, on the dark, opprobrious ground.
New York, October 10, 1839.
 

The ancient writers peopled the sea with Nymphs, whom they called Nereids. See Homer's description of Thetis and the seagreen sisters weeping for the death of Patrocles. Camoens, the Portuguese Poet, speaks of them in the first book of his Lusiad.