Classic Poem

BEING A LOVER'S MESSAGE TO HIS MISTRESS A-SUMMERING

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!