Poem by Madison Julius Cawein

The Rain

    We stood where the fields were tawny,
     Where the redolent woodland was warm,
    And the summer above us, now lawny,
     Was alive with the pulse winds of storm.

    And we watched weak wheat waves lighten,
     And wince and hiss at each gust,
    And the turbulent maples whiten,
     And the lane grow gray with dust.

    White flakes from the blossoming cherry,
     Pink snows of the peaches were blown,
    And star-fair blooms of the berry
     And the dogwood's flowers were strewn.

    And the luminous hillocks grew sullied,
     And shadowed and thrilled with alarm,
    When the body of the blackness was gullied
     With the rapid, keen flame of the storm.

    And the birds to dry coverts had hurried,
     And the musical rillet ran slow,
    And the buccaneer bee was worried,
     And the red lilies swung to and fro.

    Till the elf-cuirassiers of the showers
     Came, bright with slant lances of rain,
    And charged the bare heads of the flowers,
     And trampled the grass of the plain.

    And the armies of the leaves were shattered,
     Their standards drenched, heavy and lank;
    And the iron weed's purple was spattered,
     And the lily lay broke on the bank.

    But high in the storm was the swallow,
     And the rain-strong voice of the fall
    In the bough-grottoed dingle sang hollow
     To the sky-blue flags on its wall.

    But the storm and its clouds passed over,
     And left but one cloud in the West,
    Wet wafts that were fragrant with clover,
     And the sun low sunken to rest;

    Soft spices of rain-studded poppies,
     Of honey unfilched of a bee,
    And balm of the mead and the coppice,
     And musk of the rain-breathing tree.

    Then the cloud in the West was riven,
     And bubbled and bursten with gold,
    Blown out through deep gorges of heaven,
     And spilled on the wood and the wold.

1. In the Mountains
2. The Iron Cross
3. Communicants
4. Gertrude
5. Riders in the Night

James Riley The Rain ("The rain! the rain! the rain!")

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