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<h2>THE RAIN.</h2> <div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div class="stanza"> 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. [Pg 22]</div> <div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div class="stanza"> 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; </div> <div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div class="stanza"> 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. </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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