WE TO SIGH INSTEAD OF SING.

By James Whitcomb Riley

“Rain and rain! and rain and rain!”

Yesterday we muttered

Grimly as the grim refrain

That the thunders uttered:

All the heavens under cloud —

All the sunshine sleeping;

All the grasses limply bowed

With their weight of weeping.

Sigh and sigh! and sigh and sigh!

Never end of sighing;

Rain and rain for our reply —

Hopes half-drowned and dying;

Peering through the window-pane,

Naught but endless raining —

Endless sighing, and, as vain,

Endlessly complaining.

Shine and shine! and shine and shine!

Ah! to-day the splendor!—

All this glory yours and mine —

God! but God is tender!

We to sigh instead of sing,

Yesterday, in sorrow,

While the Lord was fashioning

This for our To-morrow!