The winter has deflowered garden and heath;
Nought lives; and on the rock’s unchanging gray,
Where the Atlantic’s endless billows play,
The last pistil to petal clings in death,
And yet, these subtile scents the sea breeze hath
Blown me I know not — warm effluvia they
That bid my heart to mad delight give way;
Whence comes this strangely odoriferous breath?
Ah! now it is revealed: — ‘Tis from the west
Three thousand leagues, where the Antilles rest,
Beneath the occidental star, in swoon;
And on this Cymric wave-lashed reef today
I’ve breathed the air perfumed by flower blown
Of old in garden of America.
(Jose Maria de Heredia y Giraud)
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Based on Topics: Death & Dying Poems, Garden Poems, America PoemsBased on Keywords: occidental, deflowered, odoriferous, pistil, antilles, effluvia, wave-lashed, cymric