Poems (McDonald)/The Summer Rain

by Mary Noel McDonald

THE SUMMER RAIN.

The Summer rain, the Summer rain!
It is streaming down to the earth again;
The hills are green where the bright drops lie,
And hid are the bee and the butterfly:
The pods are filled, and the streamlets flow
O'er pebbly beds, with their music low;
And the lily is lifting her chalice fair,
And the red-rose swings in the freshened air,
And flower-cups bend to the blessed rain,
That is streaming down to the earth again.

It bringeth joy to a thousand things,
The thirsty herbage to meet it springs;
The corn is drinking the blessed draught,
And the oak of the forest its stream hath quaffed,
And the light leaves laugh, as its silvery tide,
Like a gift of beauty, falls far and wide;
The smallest flower, in the deepest glen,
That never bloomed for the eye of men—
The gayest plant in the garden's bound—
The broadest bough in the greenwood found—
Each blade of grass, and each stately tree,
Drinketh the rain-drops joyfully.

What doth it image—the Summer rain,
When clouds are spread over earth again ?
And softly on meadow, and hill, and grove,
It comes like a voice from the world above?
It speaks of the Spirit's holy power
On the human heart in affliction's hour;
So doth it fall, when the heart is sere,
With the parching cares of this lower sphere;
So doth it fall, when the smiling sky
Is dim with the clouds of adversity;—
So doth it soften the stony breast,
As the glittering drops upon earth are pressed
'Till, as incense sweet after Summer rain,
The soul will rise towards heaven again.