To the dry grass and the drier grain
How welcome is the rain!

In the furrowed land

The toilsome and patient oxen stand;
Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,
With their dilated nostrils spread,
They silently inhale

The clover-scented gale,

And the vapors that arise

From the well watered and smoking soil.

For this rest in the furrow after toil

Their large and lustrous eyes

Seem to thank the Lord,

More than man's spoken word.

Near at hand,

From under the sheltering trees,

The farmer sees

His pastures, and his fields of grain,

As they bend their tops

To the numberless beating drops

Of the incessant rain.

He counts it as no sin

That he sees therein

Only his own thrift and gain.

These, and far more than these,

The Poet sees!

He can behold

Aquarius old

Walking the fenceless fields of air;
And from each ample fold

Of the clouds about him rolled

Scattering everywhere

The showery rain,

As the farmer scatters his grain.

He can behold
Things manifold

That have not yet been wholly told,-
Have not been wholly sung nor said.
For his thought, that never stops,
Follows the water-drops

Down to the graves of the dead,

Down through chasms and gulfs profound,

To the dreary fountain-head

Of lakes and rivers under ground;

And sees them, when the rain is done,

On the bridge of colors seven

Climbing up once more to heaven,
Opposite the setting sun.

Thus the Seer,

With vision clear,

Sees forms appear and disappear,
In the perpetual round of strange,
Mysterious change

From birth to death, from death to birth,

From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth;
Till glimpses more sublime.

Of things, unseen before,

Unto his wondering eyes reveal

The Universe, as an immeasurable wheel

Turning forevermore

In the rapid and rushing river of Time.

D'

TO A CHILD

EAR child! how radiant on thy mother's knee,
With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,

Thou gazest at the painted tiles,

Whose figures grace,

With many a grotesque form and face,

The ancient chimney of thy nursery!

The lady with the gay macaw,

The dancing girl, the grave bashaw

With bearded lip and chin;

And, leaning idly o'er his gate,

Beneath the imperial fan of state,

The Chinese mandarin.

With what a look of proud command

Thou shakest in thy little hand

The coral rattle with its silver bells,
Making a merry tune!

Thousands of years in Indian seas
That coral grew, by slow degrees,
Until some deadly and wild monsoon
Dashed it on Coromandel's sand!
Those silver bells

Reposed of yore,

As shapeless ore,

Far down in the deep-sunken wells
Of darksome mines,

In some obscure and sunless place,
Beneath huge Chimborazo's base,
Or Potosí's o'erhanging pines!
And thus for thee, O little child,
Through many a danger and escape,
The tall ships passed the stormy cape;
For thee in foreign lands remote,

Beneath a burning, tropic clime,

The Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat,
Himself as swift and wild,

In falling, clutched the frail arbute,
The fibres of whose shallow root,
Uplifted from the soil, betrayed

The silver veins beneath it laid,

The buried treasures of the miser, Time.

But, lo! thy door is left ajar!

Thou hearest footsteps from afar !

And, at the sound,

Thou turnest round

With quick and questioning eyes,

Like one, who, in a foreign land,
Beholds on every hand

Some source of wonder and surprise!

And, restlessly, impatiently,

Thou strivest, strugglest, to be free.

The four walls of thy nursery

Are now like prison walls to thee.
No more thy mother's smiles,

No more the painted tiles,

Delight thee, nor the playthings on the floor, That won thy little, beating heart before; Thou strugglest for the open. door.

Through these once solitary halls

Thy pattering footstep falls.

The sound of thy merry voice
Makes the old walls

Jubilant, and they rejoice

With the joy of thy young heart,

O'er the light of whose gladness

No shadows of sadness

From the sombre background of memory start.

Once, ah, once, within these walls,

One whom memory oft recalls,

The Father of his Country, dwelt.