A WET SEASON.

Horas non numero nisi serenas.

The rain is fierce, it flogs the earth,

And man's in danger.

O that my mother at my birth

Had borne a stranger!

The flooded ground is all around.

The depth uncommon.

How blest I'd be if only she

Had borne a salmon.

If still denied the solar glow

‘ T were bliss ecstatic

To be amphibious — but O,

To be aquatic!

We're worms, men say, o’ the dust, and they

That faith are firm of.

O, then, be just: show me some dust

To be a worm of.

The pines are chanting overhead

A psalm uncheering.

It's O, to have been for ages dead

And hard of hearing!

Restore, ye Pow'rs, the last bright hours

The dial reckoned;

‘ Twas in the time of Egypt's prime —

Rameses II.