The Memphis Appeal

"IN THE HEART OF THE WINTER,"

The air is drowsy with a tender mist,
The wind is low;
The floating clouds by the warm sunset kissed
To rosy glow
Hold not a whisper, in their calm content,
O winds that in white deserts make lament,
Shaping for summer fair, a monument
Of drifting snow.

For summer, whom the wild north wind had wooed
With careless pride,
Fled from his cold, white arms and passion rude,
He mourns his dead love in a dreary song,
Waiting the day when he shall lie ere long
Close at her side.

The foolish wind! does he not feel tonight
The presence fair,
The tender warmth of summer's breathing light,
Through all the air? For though the great god Phoebus drove today
Low in the winter heavens his fiery way;
The heralds of a coming summer gay
Are everywhere.

Once, in a golden month, I met my love;
Under a sky
Whose mellow warmth was not more fair above
When night was nigh,
Than hangs its spangled arc in winter weather,
This lovely night: below we walked together.
Remembering only that we loved each other
My love and I.

So, as I loved her there, I love her now,
with all my soul;
Though the glad months are buried deep in snow
And bleak winds howl,
This happy night comes like a sweet surprise,
Sending its grace to cheer my longing eyes,
And fill my heart with sunny prophecies,
As the weeks roll.

When the wild wind shall clasp his love again
And cease his cry:
When the tired robins through the April rain
Shall homeward fly
When all glad things that God has made have choice
Of all the others—then will we rejoice,
In twilight's gloom, to hear each other's voice,
My love and I

—Providence Journal.