The day was hot and the day was dumb,
Save for cricket's chirr or the bee's low hum,
Not a bird was seen or a butterfly,
And ever till noon was over, the sun
Glared down with a yellow and terrible eye;

Glared down in the woods, where the breathless boughs
Hung heavy and faint in a languid drowse,
And the ferns were curling with thirst and heat;
Glared down on the fields where the sleepy cows
Stood munching the grasses, dry and sweet.

Then a single cloud rose up in the west,
With a base of gray and a white, white crest;
It rose and it spread a mighty wing.
And swooped at the sun, though he did his best
And struggled and fought like a wounded thing.

And the woods awoke, and the sleepers heard,
Each heavily hanging leaflet stirred
With a little expectant quiver and thrill,
As the cloud bent over and uttered a word,—
One volleying, rolling syllable.

And once and again came the deep, low tone
Which only to thunder's lips is known,
And the earth held up her fearless face
And listened as if to a signal blown,—
A signal-trump in some heavenly place.

The trumpet of God, obeyed on high,
His signal to open the granary
And send forth his heavily loaded wains
Rambling and roaring down the sky
And scattering the blessed, long-harvested rains.

THROUGH THE DOOR.

The angel opened the door
A little way,
And she vanished, as melts a star,
Into the day,
And, for just a second's space,
Ere the bar he drew,
The pitying angel paused,
And we looked through.

What did we see within?
Ah! who can tell?
What glory and glow of light
Ineffable;
What peace in the very air,
What hush and calm,
Soothing each tired soul
Like healing balm!

Was it a dream we dreamed,
Or did we hear
The harping of silver harps,
Divinely clear?
A murmur of that "new song,"
Which, soft and low,
The happy angels sing,—
Sing as they go?

And, as in the legend old,
The good monk heard,
As he paced his cloister dim,
A heavenly bird,
And, rapt and lost in the joy
Of the wondrous song,
Listened a hundred years,
Nor deemed them long,

So chained in sense and limb,
All blind with sun,
We stood and tasted the joy
Of our vanished one;
And we took no note of time,
Till soon or late
The gentle angel sighed,
And shut the gate.

The vision is closed and sealed.
We are come back
To the old, accustomed earth,
The well-worn track,—
Back to the daily toil,
The daily pain,—
But we never can be the same,
Never again.

We who have bathed in noon,
All radiant white,
Shall we come back content
To sit in night?
Content with self and sin,
The stain, the blot?
To have stood so near the gate
And enter not?

O glimpse so swift, so sweet,
So soon withdrawn!
Stay with us; light our dusks
Till day shall dawn;
Until the shadows flee,
And to our view
Again the gate unbars,
And we pass through.