Vol. XVI No. 12 Price 5 Cents
IC
«WATCHMAN. WHAT OF THE NIGHT? THE MORNING COMETH.”
THE BREATH OF SPRING
We wait for thy coming, sweet wind of the south! O soul of the spring-time, its light and its breath;
For the touch of thy light wings, the kiss of thy mouth; Bring warmth to this coldness, bring life to this death;
For the yearly evangel thou bearest from God, Renew the great miracle; let us behold
Resurrection and life to the graves of the sod! The stone from the mouth of the sepulchre rolled,
Up our long river-valley, for days, have not ceased And Nature, like Lazarus, rise, as of old!
The wail and the shriek of the bitter northeast,— Let our faith, which in darkness and coldness has lain,
Raw and chill, as if winnowed through ices and snow, Revive with the warmth and the brightness again,
All the way from the land of the wild Esquimau,— And in blooming of flower and budding of tree
Until all our dreams of the land of the blest, The symbols and types of our destiny see.
Like that red hunter's, turn to the sunny southwest. — Whittier.
The Southern Publishing Association, Nashville, Tennessee