Poems of Felicia Hemans in The Literary Souvenir, 1827/The Breeze from Shore
THE BREEZE FROM SHORE.
BY MRS. HEMANS.
As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the Blessed.
Milton.
I.
Joy is upon the lonely seas
When Indian forests pour
Forth to the billow and the breeze
Their odours from the shore;
Joy, when the soft air's fanning sigh
Bears on the breath of Araby.
II.
Oh! welcome are the winds that tell
A wanderer of the deep,
Where far away the jasmines dwell,
And where the myrrh-trees weep!
Blessed, on the sounding surge and foam,
Are tidings of the citron's home!
III.
The sailor at the helm they meet,
And hope his bosom stirs,
Upspringing, 'midst the waves, to greet
The fair earth's messengers,
That woo him, from the moaning main,
Back to her glorious bowers again.
IV.
They woo him, whispering lovely tales
Of many a flowering glade,
And fount's bright gleam in island-vales
Of golden-fruited shade;
Across his lone ship's wake they bring
A vision and a glow of spring.
V.
And, oh! ye masters of the lay,
Come not even thus your songs,
That meet us on life's weary way,
Amidst her toiling throngs?
Yes! o'er the spirit thus they bear
A current of celestial air.
VI.
Their power is from the brighter clime
That in our birth hath part;
Their tones are of the world, which Time
Sears not within the heart;
They tell us of the living light
In its green places ever bright.
VII.
They call us, with a voice divine,
Back to our early love,—
Our vows of youth at many a shrine,
Whence far and fast we rove:
Welcome high thought, and holy strain,
That make us truth's and heaven's again!