Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1856-09-18
lloetieal.
A Rain Dream.
By WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

These strifes, these tumults of the noisy world,
Where Fraud, the coward, tracks his prey by stealth,
And Strength, tho ruffian, glores in his guilt,
Cypress the heart with sadness 0, my friend,
In what serener mood we look upon
The gooniest aspects of the elements
Among the woods and fields Let us awhile,
As the slow wind is rolling up the storm,
In fancy leave this maze of dusty streets,
Forever shaken by the importunate jar
OF commerce, and upon the daFkening air
look from the shelter of our rural home.
Who is not awed that listens to the Rain,
Sending up his voice before him Mighty Rain
The upland sleeps are shrouded by thy mists;
The wales nre gloomy with thy shade the pools
No longer glimmer, and the silvery streams
Darken to veins of lead at thy approach.
O. Mighty Rain already thou art here;
And every roof is beaten by thy streams !;
And as thou passest every CLASSY spring
Grows rough, aud every leaf in all the woods
Is struck and quivers. All the hilltops siakc
Their thirst from thee thousand languishng fields,
A thousand faintng gardens, are reireshea1
thousand idle rivuets start to speed,
And with the grave murmur of the storm
BLEND their light voices as they hurry on
Thou H;st tho circle of the atmosphere
Alone; there is no living thing abroad,
No bird to wing the air, nor beast to walk
The field the squirrel in the forest seeks
His hollow tree the marmot Of the fell
Has scampered to hi, den the butterfly
Hides under her broad leaf the insect crowds
That made the sunshine popu.ous, lie close
In their mysterious shelters, whence the sun
win summon them again. The mighty Rain
Holds the vast empire Of the sky alone.
shut my eyes, and see, as In dream,
TIE friendly clouds drop down spring violets
And summer columbines, and all the flowers
That tuft the woodland floor, or oysrarch
The streamlet--spiky grass for genial June
Brown harvests for the waiting husbandman
And for the woods deluge Of fresh leaves.
see these myriad drops that sakc the dust,
Gathered in glorious streams, or rolling blue
In pillows OH the lake the deep,
And bearing navies. 1 behold them change
To threads of crystal as they sink in earth,
And leave its stains behind, to rise again
In pleasant hooks of verdure, where the child,
Thirsty with play, in both his little hands
Shall take the cool clear water, raising it
To wet his pretty lips. Tomorrow noon
How proudly will the watcr-lily ride
The trimming pool, o'erlooking, like queen,
Her circle of broad leaves. In lonely wastes,
When next the sunshine makes them beautiful,
Gay troops of butterflies shall light to drink
At the replenshed hollows Of the rock.
Now slowly falls the dull, blank night, and still,
All through the starless hours, the mighty Rain
smes with perpetual sound the forest leaves,
And beats the matted grass and still the earth
Drinks the unstinted bounty of the clouds;
Drinks for her cottage wells, her woodland brooks;
Drinks for the sprnging trout, the toiling bee,
Lnd hroqding bird drinks for her tender flowers
Tall oaks, and all the heritage of her hills.
A melancholy SOUND Is in the cir;
deep sigh In the distance shrill wall
Around my dwelling. IT'S the wind Of night;
lonely wanderer betweenearth and cloud,
In the black shadow and chilly mist,
Along the streaming mountain side, and through
The dripping woods, and DER the plashy fields,
Roaming and sorrowng still, like one who makes
The journey of life alone and nowhere meets
welcome FRIEND and still goes on
In darkness. Yet awhile, little while,
And he shall toss the glitterng leaves in play,
Aud daily with the flowers, and gaily lift
The slender herbs, pressed low by weight of rain,
And drive, in loyons triumph through the sky,
White clouds, the laggart remnants Of the storm.
The Crdyoa.