THE WELCOME RAIN.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1560, 20 March 1874, Page 153

THE WELCOME RAIN.

A cloud came over a land of leaves—(o, hush,little leaves.letft passyou by !) How they waited and watched for the rain, Mountain and valley and vineyard and plain, With never a sigh from the sky ! Day after day had the pitiless sun Look'd down with a lidless eye. But now / On a sudden a whisper went Through the topmost twigs of the poplar spire: Out of the East a light wind blew (All the leaves trembled and murmured and knew Hope to the help of desire). It stirred the faint pulse of the forest tree. And breathed .through the brake and the brier. Slowly the cloud came, then the wind died, Dumb lay the laud in its hot suspense ; The thrush on the elm-bough suddenly stopped The weather-waru'd swallow in mid-flying dropped, The linnet ceased soug in the fence, Mute the cloud moved, till it hung overhead, Heavy, big-bosomed and dense. Ah, the cool rush through the dry-tougucd trees The patter and plash on the thirsty earth, The eager bubbling of runnel and rill, The lisping of leaves that have drunk their fill, The freshness that follows the dearth! New life for the woodland, the vineyard, the vale, , New life with the world's new birth!