A Breath of Mint

What small leaf-fingers veined with emerald light
Lay on my heart that touch of elfin might?

What spirals of sharp perfume do they fling,
To blur my page with swift remembering?

Borne in a country basket marketward,
Their message is a music spirit-heard,

A pebble-hindered lilt and gurgle and run
Of tawny singing water in the sun.

Their coolness brings that ecstasy I knew
Down by the mint-fringed brook that wandered through

My mellow meadows set with linden-trees
Loud with the summer jargon of the bees.

Their magic has its way with me until
I see the storm’s dark wing shadow the hill

As once I saw: and draw sharp breath again,
To feel their arrowy fragrance pierce the rain.

O sudden urging sweetness in the air,
Exhaled, diffused about me everywhere,

Yours is the subtlest word the summer saith,
And vanished summers sigh upon your breath.

Grace Hazard Conkling