AFTER
RAIN
For three
whole days across the sky,
In sullen packs that loomed and broke,
With flying fringes dim as smoke,
The columns of the rain went by;
At every hour the wind awoke;
5
The darkness passed upon the
plain;
The great drops rattled at the
pane.
Now piped
the wind, or aloof
Fell to a sough remote and dull;
And all night long with rush and lull
10
The rain kept drumming on the roof:
I heard till ear and sense were full
The clash or silence of the
leaves,
The gurgle in the creaking eaves.
But when
the fourth day came—at noon,
15
The darkness and the rain were by;
The sunward roofs were steaming dry;
And all the world was flecked and strewn
With shadows from a fleecy sky.
The haymakers were forth and
gone,
20
And every rillet laughed and
shone.
Then, too,
on me that loved so well
The world, despairing in her blight,
Uplifted with her least delight,
On me, as on the earth, there fell
25
New happiness of mirth and might;
I strode the valleys pied and
still;
I climbed upon the breezy hill.
I watched
the gray hawk wheel and drop,
Sole shadow on the shining world;
30
I saw the mountains clothed and curled,
With forest ruffling to the top;
I saw the river’s length unfurled,
Pale silver down the fruited
plain,
Grown great and stately with
the rain.
35
Through miles
of shadow and soft heat,
Where field and fallow, fence and tree,
Were all one world of greenery,
I heard the robin ringing sweet,
The sparrow piping silvery,
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The thrushes at the forest’s
hem;
And as I went I sang with them.
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