RAIN AND WIND.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 308, 21 May 1913, Page 4

RAIN AND WIND.

There is som& quaint attraction about the rain whieh moves the poet and the novelist to ecstasies; of course from the silent safe security of their libraries. Even Quiller Couch, in a moment of inspiration, with his feet on the fender and his pipe going well, wrote that he "Wanted the sweep of the wild west weather, , The. wind's long lash and the rain's free fall, The sigh of the trees as they whispered together, > ', The measureless grey that hung over them all. This, of course, is only an echo of. Kingsley's "Ode to the North-east Wind," which was written in defence of the sturdy, bracing English wind which had hitherto remained unsung by poets who (prefer spring zephyrs and balmy breezes 'to the more strenuous efforts of the Wind Gods. "Rain, on the beautiful street, Rhythmical, murmuring, sweet," wrote Arthur Clough, another poet who had never visited New Plymouth or Stratford. And even Swinburne, the most ecstatic lover in the Victorian era of sunshine and wide sky spaces, was moved from the comfort of his midnight slumbers to write those magnificent onomatopoetic lines-r-perhaps the most perfect- in the English language— Far and fain The soft rush of the rejoicing rain Solaced the' darkness. But in a modern world whieh is concerned with the preservation of its goods and its produce and its comforts these poetical phantasies are not as much appreciated at this time of the year as they might have been had they been read to an accompaniment of blue skies and bright sunshine. Yesterday, as a matter of fact, was a. "wicked" day in Taranaki, and the man who had built his house upon the sand would have fared even worse than his Biblical precedent. Tlte rain fell not in torrents nor in sheets, but literally in deluges. Those impassionate pbservers, the wet and dry bulbs of the hydrometer, calmly reported that the atmosphere was within an ace of saturation, and that the slightest fraction more of moisture would have precipitated the spectacle of the streets of the towns of Taranaki cloaked in a mass of curling clouds of water in suspension. This, of course, would have been picturesque, but distinctly uncomfortable. As it was, tradesmen suffered severely through the inundation, more particularly in the southern towns, whilst the damage to the streets in the townships and on the apologies for roads in tlie country is calculated to break the hearts of both town and county councillors. We quite recognise that a copious rainfall is the prime necessity of Taranaki, but it is q-ilte possible, even in these days of enormous aggrandisement, to liave too much of a good thing, and Monday's downpour might very easily have been cut up for closer settlement. It is not necessary to give us our rainfall "all in a heap." like a dog's breakfast, and we cannot expect either our tradespeople or <iu* farm ers to wax poetical over siicfc experiences.