Subscribe: by Email | in Reader

Rain in Summer -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Carrying on with the theme, here's a guest poem sent in by Mallika
Chellappa
(Poem #1895) Rain in Summer
 How beautiful is the rain!
 After the dust and heat,
 In the broad and fiery street,
 In the narrow lane,
 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
 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.

 From the neighboring 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
 Ingulfs them in its whirling
 And turbulent ocean.

 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,
 With their dilated nostrils spread,
 They silently inhale
 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.

 Near at hand,
 From under the sheltering trees,
 The farmer sees
 His pastures, and his fields of grain,
 As they bend their tops
 To the numberless beating drops
 Of the incessant rain.
 He counts it as no sin
 That he sees therein
 Only his own thrift and gain.

 These, and far more than these,
 The Poet sees!
 He can behold
 Aquarius old
 Walking the fenceless fields of air;
 And from each ample fold
 Of the clouds about him rolled
 Scattering everywhere
 The showery rain,
 As the farmer scatters his grain.

 He can behold
 Things manifold
 That have not yet been wholly told,--
 Have not been wholly sung nor said.
 For his thought, that never stops,
 Follows the water-drops
 Down to the graves of the dead,
 Down through chasms and gulfs profound,
 To the dreary fountain-head
 Of lakes and rivers under ground;
 And sees them, when the rain is done,
 On the bridge of colors seven
 Climbing up once more to heaven,
 Opposite the setting sun.

 Thus the Seer,
 With vision clear,
 Sees forms appear and disappear,
 In the perpetual round of strange,
 Mysterious change
 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 forevermore
 In the rapid and rushing river of Time.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I recommend "Rain in Summer" by HW Longfellow. This was in my English
Reader in Primary school and I could identify with it perfectly - I never
even realized it was set in an American milieu.

I don't think I am a Luddite - I make my living at a hi-tech occupation -
but I ache for a return to a simpler life governed by the milestones of
Nature, the seasons, and the many samdhyas/solstices/equinoxes.

Mallika

37 comments: ( or Leave a comment )

Post a Comment