WHEN IT IS GOING TO RAIN.

Otaki Mail, 13 January 1919, Page 4

WHEN IT IS GOING TO RAIN.

(By the Grandfather of Charles Darwin). The hollow winds begin to blow; The clouds look black, the glas.3 is low; The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep, And spiders from their cobwebs peep. Last night the sun went pule to bed; The moon in halos hid her head. The boding shepherd heaves a sigh For, see, a rainbow spans the sky. The walls arc damp, the ditches swell; Closed is the light-red pimpernel. Hark; how the chairs and tables crack! Old Betty's joints arc on the rack; Her corns with shooting pains torment, her, And to bed untimely sends her. Loud quack the clucks, the sea fowls cry, The distant hills arc looking nigh. How restless arc the snorting swine! The busy flies disturb the kinc. Low o'er the grass the swallow wings; The cricket, too, how sharp he sings! Puss on the hearth, with velvet paws, Sits wiping o'er her whiskered jaws. The smoke from the chimney's right ascends. Then ascending back to earth it bends The wind unsteady veers around, Or settling in the south is found. Through the clear stream the fishes rise And nimbly catch the incautious flics. The glow-worms, numerous, clear, and bright, Illumined the dewy hill last night. At dusk the squalid toad was seen Like quadrupeds, stalk o'er the green. The whirling wind "the dust obeys, And in the rapid eddy plays. The frog has changed his yellow vest; And in a russet coat is dressed. The sky is green, the air is still, The blackbird's mellow voice is shrill. The dog, so altered in his taste, Quits mutton bones on grass to feast. Behold the rooks, how odd their flight! They imitate the gliding kite, And seem precipitate to fall, As if they felt the piercing ball. The tender colts on backs do lie. Nor heed the traveller passing by. In fiery red the sun doth rise, Then wades through clouds to mount the skies; 'Twill surely rain, wc see't with sorrow, No working in the fields to-morrow.