he 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[28] 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[29] 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 the incessant rain.
He counts it as no sin
That he sees therein
Only his own thrift and gain.

These and far more than these,
The Poet sees!
He can behold
Aquarius[30] old
Walking the fenceless fields of air
And, from each ample fold
Of the clouds about him rolled,
Scattering everywhere
The showery rain,
As the farmer scatters his grain.

He can behold
Things manifold
That have not yet been wholly told,
Have not been wholly sung nor said.
For his thought, which never stops,
Follows the water-drops
Down to the graves of the dead,
Down through chasms and gulfs profound
To the dreary fountain-head
Of lakes and rivers under ground,
And sees them, when the rain is done,
On the bridge of colors seven,
Climbing up once more to heaven,
Opposite the setting sun.

Thus the seer,[31]
With vision clear,
Sees forms appear and disappear,
In the perpetual round of strange
Mysterious change
From birth to death, from death to birth;
From earth to heaven, from heaven to ea