Before The Rain

We knew it would rain, for all the morn A spirit, on slender ropes of mist, Was lowering its golden buckets down Into the vapory amethyst

Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens-- Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers, Dipping the jewels out of the sea, To scatter them over the land in showers.

We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed The white of their leaves; the amber grain Shrunk in the wind--and the lightning now Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.

--THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.