Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
A Dream of the South Winds
By Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830–1886)O
Through the crystal gulfs of air,
The fairy South Wind floateth on her subtle wings of balm!
And the green earth lapped in bliss,
To the magic of her kiss
Seems yearning upward fondly through the golden-crested calm!
Where the billows, bright and bland,
Go creeping, curling round the palms with sweet, faint undertune,
From its fields of purpling flowers
Still wet with fragrant showers,
The happy South Wind lingering sweeps the royal blooms of June.
On the perfume of her sighs,
Which steep the inmost spirit in a language rare and fine,
And a peace more pure than sleep’s
Unto dim, half-conscious deeps,
Transports me, lulled and dreaming, on its twilight tides divine.
So mystical and tender,
Wherewith like soft-heat lightnings they gird their meaning round,
And those waters, calling, calling,
With a nameless charm enthralling,
Like the ghost of music melting on a rainbow spray of sound!
Lest grosser thoughts o’ertake me,
From earth receding faintly with her dreary din and jars,—
What viewless arms caress me?
What whispered voices bless me,
With welcomes dropping dewlike from the weird and wondrous stars?
Grows the preternatural glimmer
Of that trance the South Wind brought me on her subtle wings of balm;
For behold! its spirit flieth,
And its fairy murmur dieth,
And the silence closing round me is a dull and soulless calm!