A Summer Shower

Welcome, rain or tempest

                         From yon airy powers,

                      We have languished for them

                         Many sultry hours,

And earth is sick and wan, and pines with all her flowers.

                      What have they been doing

                         In the burning June?

                      Riding with the genii?

                         Visiting the moon?

Or sleeping on the ice amid an arctic noon?

                      Bring they with them jewels

                         From the sunset lands?

                      What are these they scatter

                         With such lavish hands?

There are no brighter gems in Raolconda’s sands.

                      Pattering on the gravel,

                         Dropping from the eaves,

                      Glancing in the grass, and

                         Tinkling on the leaves,

They flash the liquid pearls as flung from fairy sieves.

                      Meanwhile, unreluctant,

                         Earth like Danae lies;

                      Listen! is it fancy

                         That beneath us sighs,

As that warm lap receives the largesse of the skies?

                      Jove, it is, descendeth

                         In those crystal rills;

                      And this world-wide tremor

                         Is a pulse that thrills

To a god’s life infused through veins of velvet hills.

                      Wait, thou jealous sunshine,

                         Break not on their bliss;

                      Earth will blush in roses

                         Many a day for this,

And bend a brighter brow beneath thy burning kiss.