The Voice of the Rain.
THE VOICE OF THE RAIN.
And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower, Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated: I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain, Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea, Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether changed,and yet the same, I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe, And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn; And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own
origin, and make pure and beautify it; (For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wander-
ing, Reck'd or unreck'd. duly with love returns.)