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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  “Sweetly breathing, vernal air”

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

III. The Seasons

“Sweetly breathing, vernal air”

Thomas Carew (1595?–1639?)

SWEETLY breathing, vernal air,

That with kind warmth doth repair

Winter’s ruins; from whose breast

All the gums and spice of the East

Borrow their perfumes; whose eye

Gilds the morn, and clears the sky.

Whose dishevelled tresses shed

Pearls upon the violet bed;

On whose brow, with calm smiles drest

The halcyon sits and builds her nest;

Beauty, youth, and endless spring

Dwell upon thy rosy wing!

Thou, if stormy Boreas throws

Down whole forests when he blows,

With a pregnant, flowery birth,

Canst refresh the teeming earth.

If he nip the early bud,

If he blast what ’s fair or good,

If he scatter our choice flowers,

If he shake our halls or bowers,

If his rude breath threaten us,

Thou canst stroke great Æolus,

And from him the grace obtain,

To bind him in an iron chain.