Enough! I will not play the seer; RAIN IN SUMMER. How beautiful is the rain! In the broad and fiery street, How beautiful is the rain! How it clatters along the roofs, Like the tramp of hoofs ! How it gushes and struggles out From the throat of the overflowing spout! Across the window pane It pours and pours; And swift and wide, With a muddy tide, Like a river down the gutter roars The rain, the welcome rain! The sick man from his chamber looks He can feel the cool Breath of each little pool; His fevered brain Grows calm again, And he breathes a blessing on the rain. From the neighbouring school Come the boys, With more than their wonted noise And commotion; And down the wet streets Sail their mimic fleets, Till the treacherous pool In the country, on every side, Where far and wide, Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide, Stretches the plain, To the dry grass and drier grain How welcome is the rain! In the furrowed land The toilsome and patient oxen stand; Lifting the yoke-encumbered head, The clover-scented gale, And the vapours that arise From the well-watered and smoking soil. For this rest in the furrow after toil Their large and lustrous eyes Seem to thank the Lord, More than man's spoken word. Near at hand, From under the sheltering trees, His pastures, and his fields of grain, As they bend their tops To the numberless beating drops He counts it as no sin That he sees therein Only his own thrift and gain. These, and far more than these, Walking the fenceless fields of air; Of the clouds about him rolled, The showery rain, As the farmer scatters his grain. He can behold Things manifold, That have not yet been wholly told,— Down to the graves of the dead, Of lakes and rivers under ground; And sees them, when the rain is done, Thus the Seer, With vision clear, Sees forms appear and disappear, |