How it clatters along the roofs, 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 At the twisted brooks; He can feel the cool Breath of each little pool; His fevered brain Grows calm again, And he breathes a blessing on the rain. 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 the 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 vapors 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. For his thought, that never stops, Down to the graves of the dead, Down through chasms and gulfs profound, Of lakes and rivers under ground; And sees them, when the rain is done, Climbing up once more to heaven, From birth to death, from death to birth, From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth; Till glimpses more sublime Of things, unseen before, Unto his wondering eyes reveal The Universe, as an immeasurable wheel Turning for evermore In the rapid and rushing river of Time. TO A CHILD. DEAR child! how radiant on thy mother's knee, With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles, Thou gazest at the painted tiles, Whose figures grace, With many a grotesque form and face, The ancient chimney of thy nursery! The lady with the gay macaw, The dancing girl, the grave bashaw With bearded lip and chin; With what a look of proud command Thousands of years in Indian seas Reposed of yore, Far down in the deep-sunken wells In some obscure and sunless place, In falling, clutched the frail arbute, The fibres of whose shallow root, Uplifted from the soil, betrayed But, lo! thy door is left ajar! Thou hearest footsteps from afar! And, at the sound, Thou turnest round With quick and questioning eyes, who, in a foreign land, Like one, Beholds on every hand Some source of wonder and surprise! Delight thee, nor the playthings on the floor, Through these once solitary halls Thy pattering footstep falls. Jubilant, and they rejoice With the joy of thy young heart, O'er the light of whose gladness No shadows of sadness From the sombre background of memory start. Once, ah, once, within these walls, One whom memory oft recalls, |