Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume V. Nature. 1904. | | | | III. The Seasons | | 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; | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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. | | | | |
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