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| MORE than the wind, more than the snow, | |
| More than the sunshine, I love rain: | |
| Whether it droppeth soft and low, | |
| Whether it rusheth amain. | |
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| Dark as the night it spreadeth its wings, | 5 |
| Slow and silently, up on the hills; | |
| Then sweeps o’er the vale, like a steed that springs | |
| From the grasp of a thousand wills. | |
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| Swift sweeps under heaven the raven’s flight; | |
| And the land and the lakes and the main | 10 |
| Lie belted beneath with steel-bright light, | |
| The light of the swift-rushing rain. | |
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| On evenings of summer, when sunlight is low, | |
| Soft the rain falls from opal-hued skies: | |
| And the flowers the most delicate summer can show | 15 |
| Are not stirred by its gentle surprise. | |
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| It falls on the pools, and no wrinkling it makes, | |
| But touching melts in, like the smile | |
| That sinks in the face of a dreamer, but breaks | |
| Not the calm of his dream’s happy wile. | 20 |
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| The grass rises up as it falls on the meads, | |
| The bird softlier sings in his bower, | |
| And the circles of gnats circle on like winged seeds | |
| Through the soft sunny lines of the shower. | |
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