Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

O Soft Spring Airs!

By Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835–1921)

COME up, come up, O soft spring airs,

Come from your silver shining seas,

Where all day long you toss the wave

About the low and palm-plumed keys!

Forsake the spicy lemon groves,

The balms and blisses of the South,

And blow across the longing land

The breath of your delicious mouth.

Come from the almond bough you stir,

The myrtle thicket where you sigh;

Oh, leave the nightingale, for here

The robin whistles far and nigh!

For here the violet in the wood

Thrills with the fulness you shall take,

And wrapped away from life and love

The wild rose dreams, and fain would wake.

For here in reed and rush and grass,

And tiptoe in the dusk and dew,

Each sod of the brown earth aspires

To meet the sun, the sun and you.

Then come, O fresh spring airs, once more

Create the old delightful things,

And woo the frozen world again

With hints of heaven upon your wings!