---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 1
number: 5
published: 1898-03
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: "Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, \"To the South Wind, a Poem,\" *Improvement Era* 1, no. 5 (March 1898): 313."
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera15unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera15unse
start_page: 313
end_page: 313
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1898-03)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera15unse
  publication_year: 1898
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1898, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# To the South Wind, a Poem

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TO THE SOUTH WIND.

           Oh southern wind!
         Long hast thou linger'd mid those islands fair
           Which lie, like jewels, on the Indian deep,
           Or green waves, all asleep.
         Fed by the summer suns and azure air—
           O sweetest southern wind!
          Wilt thou not now unbind
         Thy dark and crowned hair ?
               Wilt thou not unloose now
                 In this the bluest of all hours,
                 Thy passion -color 'd flowers;
               And shaking the fine fragrance from thy brow,
                 Kiss our girls' laughing lips and youthful eyes,
                And all that world of love which lower lies,
               Breathing, and warm, and white       —purer than snow?
                 O thou sweet southern wind!
                 Come to me and unbind
               The languid blossoms which oppress my brow.

        We, whom the northern blast
          Blows on from night to mom, from morn to ere,
          Hearing thee, sometimes grieve
        That our brief summer days not long must last;
          And yet perhaps 'twere well
          We should not ever dwell
        With thee, sweet spirit of the sunny south,
        But touch thy odorous mouth
          Once, and be gone unto our blasts again.
        And their bleak welcome, and our wintry snow;
          And arm us, by enduring, for that pain,
        Which the bad world sends forth, and all its woe.
                                                         Anon.