THE RAIN.

The rain! the rain! the rain!

It gushed from the skies and streamed

Like awful tears; and the sick man thought

How pitiful it seemed!

And he turned his face away,

And stared at the wall again,

His hopes nigh dead and his heart worn out.

O the rain! the rain! the rain!

The rain! the rain! the rain!

And the broad stream brimmed the shores;

And ever the river crept over the reeds

And the roots of the sycamores:

A corpse swirled by in a drift

Where the boat had snapt its chain —

And a hoarse-voiced mother shrieked and raved.

O the rain! the rain! the rain!

The rain! the rain! the rain!—

Pouring, with never a pause,

Over the fields and the green byways —

How beautiful it was!

And the new-made man and wife

Stood at the window-pane

Like two glad children kept from school.—

O the rain! the rain! the rain!