RAIN IN SUMMER

BY H. W. LONGFELLOW

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882): The best known and best loved of American poets. His simplicity of thought and expression makes him a favorite with children. The best of his longer poems are “Hiawatha,” “Evangeline,” and “The Courtship of Miles Standish.” Many of his shorter poems—such as “The Psalm of Life,” “The Bridge,” and “The Village Blacksmith ”— are household favorites. Longfellow wrote two prose works, “Outre Mer” and “Hyperion,” descriptive of his European travels.

How beautiful is the rain!

After the dust and the heat,

In the broad and fiery street,

In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs, Like the tramp of hoofs!

How it gushes and struggles out

From the throat of the overflowing spout!Across the window-pane

It pours and pours;

And swift and wide,

With a muddy tide,

Like a river down the gutter roars The rain, the welcome rain!

The sick man from his chamber looks At the twisted brooks.

He can feel the cool

Breath of each little pool;

His fevered brain

Grows calm again,

And he breathes a blessing on the rain. From the neighboring school

Come the boys,

With more than their wonted noise

And commotion;

And down the wet streets

Sail their mimic fleets,

Till the treacherous pool Engulfs them in its whirling And turbulent ocean.

In the country on every side,

Where far and wide,

Like a leopard’s tawny and spotted hide, Stretches the plain,

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 theincessant rain.

He counts it as no sin

That he sees therein

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