The Latter Rain

Jones Very (1813–1880)

THE LATTER rain,—it falls in anxious haste

Upon the sun-dried fields and branches bare,

Loosening with searching drops the rigid waste

As if it would each root’s lost strength repair;

But not a blade grows green as in the spring;

No swelling twig puts forth its thickening leaves;

The robins only mid the harvests sing,

Pecking the grain that scatters from the sheaves;

The rain falls still,—the fruit all ripened drops,

It pierces chestnut-bur and walnut-shell;

The furrowed fields disclose the yellow crops;

Each bursting pod of talents used can tell;

And all that once received the early rain

Declare to man it was not sent in vain.