30 October 2009

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 sprinkle them over the land in showers. We kneew 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