The Salt Sea-Wind

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When Venus, mother and maker of blisses,
Rose out of the billows, large-limbed, and fair,
She stood on the sands and blew sweet kisses
To the salt sea-wind as she dried her hair.

And the salt sea-wind was the first to caress her
To praise her beauty and call her sweet,
The first of the whole wide world to possess her,
She, that creature of light and heat.

Though the sea is old with its sorrows and angers,
And the world has forgotten why love was born,
Yet the salt sea-wind is full of the languors
That Venus taught on her natal morn.

And now whoever dwells there by the ocean,
And feels the wind on his hair and face,
Is stirred by a subtle and keen emotion,
The lingering spell of that first embrace.