The winter has deflowered garden and heath; <br />Nought lives; and on the rock's unchanging gray, <br />Where the Atlantic's endless billows play, <br />The last pistil to petal clings in death, <br /> <br />And yet, these subtile scents the sea breeze hath <br />Blown me I know not - warm effluvia they <br />That bid my heart to mad delight give way; <br />Whence comes this strangely odoriferous breath? <br /> <br />Ah! now it is revealed: - 'Tis from the west <br />Three thousand leagues, where the Antilles rest, <br />Beneath the occidental star, in swoon; <br /> <br />And on this Cymric wave-lashed reef today <br />I've breathed the air perfumed by flower blown <br />Of old in garden of America.<br /><br />Jose Maria de Heredia<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sea-bleeze/
