O ye who so unceasing praise the Sun;
Ye who find nothing worthy of your love
But the Sun's face and the strong light thereof;
Who, when the day is done,
Are all uncomforted
Unless the night be crowned with many a star,
Or mellow light be shed
From the ancient moon that gazeth from afar,
With pitiless calm, upon the old, tired Earth;
O ye to whom the skies
Must be forever fair to free your eyes
From mortal pain; ―
Have ye not known the great exceeding worth
Of that soft peace which cometh with Rain?
Behold! the wisest of you knows no thing
That hath such title to man's worshipping
As the first sudden day [page 40]
The slumberous Earth is wakened into Spring;
When heavy clouds and gray
Come up the southern way,
And their bold challenge throw
In the face of the frightened snow
That covereth the ground.
What need they now the armies of the Sun
Whose trumpets now do sound?
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Alas, the powerless Sun!
Hath he not waged his wars for days gone past,
Each morning drawing up his cohorts vast
And leading them with slow and even paces
To assault once more the impenetrable places,
Where, crystal-bound,
The river moveth on with silent sound?
O puny, powerless Sun!
On the pure white snow where are the lightest traces
Of what thy forces' ordered ways have done?
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On these large spaces
No footsteps are imprinted anywhere;
Still the white glare
Is perfect; yea, the snows are drifted still
On plain and hill;
And still the river knows the Winter's iron will.
Thou wert most wise, O Sun, to hide thy face
This day beneath the cloud's gray covering;
Thou wert most wise to know the deep disgrace
In which thy name is holden of the Spring.
She deems thee now an impotent, useless thing,
And hath dethroned thee from thy mighty place;
Knowing that with the clouds will come apace
The Rain, and that the rain will be a royal king.
A king? —Nay, queen! [page 41]
For in soft girlish-wise she takes her throne
When first she cometh in the young Spring-season;
Gentle and mild,
Yet with no dread of any revolution,
And fearing not a land unreconciled,
And unafraid of treason.
In her dark hair
Lieth the snow's most certain dissolution;
And in her glance is known
The freeing of the rivers from their chainings;
And in her bosom's strainings
Earth's teeming breast is tokened and foreshown.
Behold her coming surely, calmly down,
Where late the clear skies were,
With gray clouds for a gown;
Her fragile draperies
Caught by the little breeze
Which loveth her!
She weareth yet no crown,
Nor is there any sceptre in her hands;
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Yea, in all lands,
Whatever Spring she cometh, men know well
That it is right and good for her to come;
And that her least commands
Must be fulfilled, however wearisome;
And that they all must guard the citadel
Wherein she deigns to dwell!
And so, even now, her feet pass swiftly over
The impressionable snow
That vanisheth as woe
Doth vanish from the rapt face of a lover,
Who, after doubting nights, hath come to know
His lady loves him so! [page 42]
(Yet not like him
Doth the snow bear the signs of her light touch!
It is all gray in places, and looks worn
With some most bitter pain;
As he shall look, perchance,
Some early morn
While yet the dawn is dim,
When he awakens from the enraptured trance
In which he, blind, hath lain,
And knows also that he hath loved in vain
The lady who, he deemed, had loved him much.
And though her utter worthlessness is plain
He hath no joy of his deliverance,
But only asketh God to let him die,―
And getteth no reply.)
Yea, the snows fade before the calm strength of the rain!
And while the rain is unabated,
Well-heads are born and streams created
On the hillsides, and set a-flowing
Across the fields. The river, knowing
That there hath surely come at last
Its freedom, and that frost is past,
Gathereth force to break its chains;
The river's faith is in the Spring's unceasing rains!
See where the shores even now were firmly bound
The slowly widening water showeth black,
As from the fields and meadows all around
Come rushing over the dark and snowless ground
The foaming streams!
Beneath the ice the shoulders of the tide
Lift, and from shore to shore a thin, blue crack
Starts, and the dark, long-hidden water gleams,
Glad to be free.
And now the uneven rift is growing wide;
The breaking ice is fast becoming gray;
It hears the loud beseeching of the sea,
And moveth on its way.
Surely at last the work of the rain is done!
Surely the Spring at last is well begun,
O unavailing Sun!
O ye who worship only at the noon,
When will ye learn the glory of the rain?
Have ye not seen the thirsty meadow-grass
Uplooking piteous at the burnished sky,
And all in vain?
Even in June
Have ye not seen the yellow flowers swoon
Along the roadside, where the dust, alas,
Is hard to pass?
Have ye not heard
The song cease in the throat of every bird
And know the thing all these were stricken by?
Ye have beheld these things, yet made no prayer,
O pitiless and uncompassionate!
Yet should the weeping
Of Death's wide wings across your face unsleeping
Be felt of you to-night,
And all your hair
Know the soft stirring of an alien breath
From out the mouth of Death,
Would ye not then have memory of these
And how their pain was great?
Would ye not wish to hear among the trees
The wind in his great night,
And on the roof the rain's unending harmonies?
For when could death be more desired by us
(Oh, follow, Death, I pray thee, with the Fall!)
Than when the night
Is heavy with the wet wind born of rain?
When flowers are yellow, and the growing grass
Is not yet tall,
Or when all living things are harvested
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And with bright gold the hills are glorious,
Or when all colors have faded from our sight
And all is gray that late was gold and red?
Have ye not lain awake the long night through
And listened to the falling of the rain
On fallen leaves, withered and brown and dead?
Have none of you,
Hearing its ceaseless sound, been comforted
And made forgetful of the day's live pain?
Even Thou, who wept because the dark was great
Once, and didst pray that dawn might come again,
Has noon not seemed to be a dreaded thing
And night a thing not wholly desolate
And Death thy soul's supremest sun-rising?
Did not thy hearing strain
To catch the moaning of the wind-swept sea,
Where great tides be,
And swift, white rain?
Did not its far exulting teach thy soul
That of all things the sea alone is free
And under no control?
Its liberty,―
Was it not most desired by thy soul?
I say,
The Earth is alway glad, yea, and the sea
Is glad alway
When the rain cometh; either tranquilly [page 45]
As at the first dawn of a Summer day
Or in late Autumn wildly passionate,
Or when all things are all disconsolate
Because that Winter has been long their king,
Or in the Spring.
―Therefore let now your joyful thanksgiving
Be heard on Earth because the Rain hath come!
While land and sea give praise, shall ye be dumb?
Shall ye alone await the sun-shining?
Your days, perchance, have many joys to bring;
Perchance with woes they shall be burthensome;
Yet when night cometh, and ye journey home,
Weary, and sore, and stained with travelling,
When ye seek out your homes because the night―
The last, dark night—falls swift across your path,
And on Life's altar your last day lies slain,
Will ye not cry aloud with that new might
One dying with great things unfinished hath,
"O God! If Thou wouldst only send Thy Rain! "
