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 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 neighbouring 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 And turbulent ocean. In the country on every side, Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide To the dry grass and the drier grain In the furrowed land The toilsome and patient oxen stand; The clover-scented gale, And the vapours 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 He counts it as no sin That he sees therein Only his own thrift and gain. H. W. Longfellow XIII EPITAPH ON A HARE Here lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue Old Tiney, surliest of his kind, Though duly from my hand he took He did it with a jealous look, His diet was of wheaten bread, On twigs of hawthorn he regaled, A Turkey carpet was his lawn, His frisking was at evening hours, But most before approaching showers, Eight years and five round-rolling moons And every night at play. I kept him for his humours' sake, My heart of thoughts that made it ache, But now, beneath this walnut shade, He, still more aged, feels the shocks W. Cowper XIV ABOU BEN ADHEM AND THE ANGEL Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold :— 'What writest thou?'-The vision raised its head, The angel wrote and vanished. The next night It came again with a great wakening light, And show'd the names whom love of God had bless'd And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. Leigh Hunt XV LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, The sedge is wither'd from the lake, Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, So haggard and so woe-begone? And the harvest's done. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever dew; Fast withereth too. |