“Whence comest thou, wind, in thy rapid flight,
Or the balmy play of the zephyrs light?
Hast thou breathed o’er the freshness of myrtle bowers,
And laden thy wings from the orange flowers?
Or pierced the darkness of distant caves,
Whose depths resound with the ocean’s waves?
Yet bring me no shadows of grief or woe,
’Tis only earth’s beauties I fain would know.”
“I come in mirth,” said the gentle breeze,
“To bring the murmurs of distant seas;
I passed o’er the regions of fairest bloom,
Till my pinions were laden with soft perfume;
Where the dulcet tones of the wild bird’s note,
In the boundless regions of ether float.
I have come from the land of Olympus’ pride,
Where the Spartan fought, and the Persian died.
But prostrate palace, and fallen fane,
Of its grandeur and beauty alone remain.
I waved the boughs of the clustering vines,
As their shadows fell o’er the mouldering lines,
Which mark the spot of the warrior’s tomb,
In that home of glory and land of bloom.
And I kissed the brow of the dark-eyed girl,
As I stirred with my pinions each raven curl.
Nay, ask not a tale of unmingled joy,
For earth has no pleasure without alloy;
The widow’s moan, and the orphan’s wail,
Are often borne on the sighing gale.
When the clarion’s voice, and the cannon’s roar,
Bear terror and ruin from shore to shore.
I come in wrath, and the storm-clouds fly,
In blackening folds through the darksome sky;
And the mariner wakes from his joyful dream,
Midst the tempest’s roar, and the lightning’s gleam;
In the fathomless vaults of the ocean’s caves,
He must rest mid the tumult of angry waves.
I am fearless of sky, or of earth or sea,
But soar over all with pinions free;
I sport with the curls of the laughing child,
With the bandit play, or the maiden mild;
From the fragile flower to the lofty tree
All bend in submission and yield to me.”
Emma.
Yonker’s Female Seminary, 1841.
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