Poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Winter Rain

Every valley drinks,
  Every dell and hollow:
Where the kind rain sinks and sinks,
  Green of Spring will follow.

Yet a lapse of weeks
  Buds will burst their edges,
Strip their wool-coats, glue-coats, streaks,
  In the woods and hedges;

Weave a bower of love
  For birds to meet each other,
Weave a canopy above
  Nest and egg and mother.

But for fattening rain
  We should have no flowers,
Never a bud or leaf again
  But for soaking showers;

Never a mated bird
  In the rocking tree-tops,
Never indeed a flock or herd
  To graze upon the lea-crops.

Lambs so woolly white,
  Sheep the sun-bright leas on,
They could have no grass to bite
  But for rain in season.

We should find no moss
  In the shadiest places,
Find no waving meadow-grass
  Pied with broad-eyed daisies;

But miles of barren sand,
  With never a son or daughter,
Not a lily on the land,
  Or lily on the water.

1. Noble Sisters
2. Confluents
3. In the Round Tower at Jhansi, June 8, 1857
4. The Lambs of Grasmere, 1860
5. An End

Ella Wilcox Winter Rain ("Falling upon the frozen world last night")

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