Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Henry CuylerBunner

1229 To a June Breeze

WIND of the City Streets,

Impatient to be free,

In this dull time of heats

My love takes wings to flee:

Leave thou this idle Town

And hunt Her down.

Wherever She may stay,

By Sea or Mountain-side,

Make thou thy airy Way,

If there She bide;

If sea-spray kiss Her face;

Or hills find grace.

And, having found Her out,

On Sands or under Trees,

Say that I wait in doubt,

To melt with love, or freeze:

Nor yet hath Summer stirred,

But waits Her word.

Say that, if She so please,

These ways so dusty-dry,

With their poor song-shunned Trees,

Shall ring with Melody;

And turn Love’s Wilderness,

If She say Yes.

But if my Fate fall so

That She will naught of me,

Tell Her the Winter’s snow

Shall strip the greenest tree:

One only Frost I fear—

She makes my year.

Go, then, sweet Wind, and pray

That She remember

She makes my March or May,

June or December—

If Town grow green with trees,

If the new Blossoms freeze,

Hers it is but to say,—

Pray Her that so She please—

Pray Her remember!