Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WIND OF PROVENCE, by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WIND OF PROVENCE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O wind of provence, subtle wind that blows
Last Line: O wind of provence, shall I call in vain?
Subject(s): Provence, France


O WIND of Provence, subtle wind that blows
Through coverts of the impenetrable rose,
O musical soft wind, come near to me,
Come down into these hollows by the sea,
O wind of Provence, heavy with the rose'

How once along the blue sea's battlements
Thy amorous rose-trees poured their spicy scents!
The heavy perfume streamed down granite walls,
Where now the prickly cactus gibes and crawls
Down towards cold waves from grim rock-battlements.

Of all the attar, sharp and resinous,
The spines and stalks alone are left for us,
And so much sickly essence as may cleave
About the hands of maidens when they weave
Wild roses into wreaths of bloom for us.

Where are the old days vanished, ah! who knows?
When all the wide world blossomed with the rose,
When all the world was full of frank desire,
When love was passion and when flowers were fire,
Where are the old days vanished, ah! who knows?

Come down, O wind of Provence, sing again
In my lulled ears, for quenching of all pain,
The litany of endless amorous hours,
The song of songs that blossomed with the flowers,
And brightened when the flowers decayed again.

When Ermengarde, the lady of Narbonne,
Star-like above the silken tourney shone,
With powdered gold upon her ruddy hair;
There was no woman anywhere so fair
As Ermengarde, the glory of Narbonne!

Love's ladies paced the sward beneath all towers,
Their grass-green satins stirred the daisy-flowers;
No knight or dame was pale with spent desire,
For pleasure served them as an altar-fire;
Their mortal spirits faded like soft flowers.

Some wreaths and robes, a lute with moulded strings,
One clear perennial song on deathless wings,
Still tell us later men of those delights
That filled their happy days and passionate nights,
While Life smote gaily on his tense harp-strings.

Now cold earth covers all of them with death;
The gray world travels on with failing breath,
Long having passed her prime, and twilight comes,
And some men wait for dream-millenniums,
But most are gathering up their robes for death.

The old air hangs about us cold and strange;
We stand like blind men, wistful for a change,
But only darkness lies on either hand,
And in a sinister, unlovely land,
We cling together, waiting for the change.

But in this little interval of rest
May one not press the rose-flower to his breast,
The sanguine rose whose passionate delight
In amorous days of old was infinite,
And now, like some narcotic, sings of rest?

So be it! I, the child of this last age,
To whom the shadow of death is heritage,
Will set my face to dream against the past;
This time of tears and trouble cannot last,
The dawn must some time herald a new age.

Till then, O wind of Provence, thrill my brain
With musk and terebinth and dewy rain
From over-luscious roses, and declare
That wine is delicate and woman fair;
O wind of Provence, shall I call in vain?





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