Classic Poem

Low sweet wind, whose melody,
Floats along the rippled sea,
Why, to ride the curling foam,
Did'st thou leave thy pleasant home?
For thy motion soft and slow,
And thy voice so sweet and low,
Tell of milder climes than this,
Far beyond the blue abyss.

Dost thou come from Araby,
Where eternal summers be?
Or, where over ocean isles
Everlasting verdure smiles?
Sporting under spicy trees,
Singing where the roses blow,
Could'st thou leave them, wandering breeze,
For the land of cold and snow?

Dost thou bring from Eastern bowers
Tidings of the birds and flowers?
For the birds away have flown, —
And the flowers all shrunk and gone; —
Go, and tell them how we long
For the roses and the song; —
Now, sweet wind, I warn thee go,
Here is only cold and snow!