How beautiful is the rain!

After the dust and heat,

In the broad and fiery street,

In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters upon the roofs

Like the tramp of hoofs!

How it gushes and struggles out

From the throat of the overflowing spout.

Across the window-pane

It pours and pours,

And swift and wide,

With a muddy tide,

Like a river down the gutter roars

The rain, the welcome rain!

The sick man from his chamber looks

At the twisted brooks;

He can feel the cool

Breath of each little pool;

His fevered brain

Grows calm again,

And he breathes a blessing on the rain!

From the neighboring school

Come the boysWith more than their wonted noise

And commotion;

And down the wet streets

Sail their mimic28 fleets,

Till the treacherous pool

Engulfs them in its whirling

And turbulent ocean.

In the country on every side,

Where, far and wide,

Like a leopard’s tawny and spotted hide,

Stretches the plain,

To the dry grass and the drier grain

How welcome is the rain!

In the furrowed land

The toilsome and patient oxen stand,

Lifting the yoke-encumbered29 head,

With their dilated nostrils spread,

They silently inhale

The clover-scented gale,

And the vapors that arise

From the well-watered and smoking soil

For this rest in the furrow after toil,

Their large and lustrous eyes

Seem to thank the Lord,

More than man’s spoken word.

Near at hand,

From under the sheltering trees,

The farmer sees

His pastures and his fields of grain,

As they bend their tops

To the numberless beating drops

Of the incessant rain.

He counts it as no sin

That he sees therein

Only his own thrift and gain.

These and far more than these,

The Poet sees!

He can behold

Aquarius30 old

Walking the fenceless fields of air

And, from each ample fold

Of the clouds about him rolled,

Scattering everywhere

The showery rain,

As the farmer scatters his grain.

He can behold

Things manifold

That have not yet been wholly told,

Have not been wholly sung nor said.

For his thought, which never stops,Follows the water-drops

Down to the graves of the dead,

Down through chasms and gulfs profound

To the dreary fountain-head

Of lakes and rivers under ground,

And sees them, when the rain is done,

On the bridge of colors seven,

Climbing up once more to heaven,

Opposite the setting sun.

Thus the seer,31

With vision clear,

Sees forms appear and disappear,

In the perpetual round of strange

Mysterious change

From birth to death, from death to birth;

From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth,

Till glimpses more sublime

Of things unseen before

Unto his wondering eyes reveal

The universe, as an immeasurable wheel

Turning forevermore

In the rapid and rushing river of time.

Tell me not in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle—

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe’er pleasant;

Let the dead past bury its dead!Act, act in the living present,

Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time:

Footprints that perhaps another,

Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept,

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We set to-day the votive stone,

That memory may their deed redeem,

When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit that made those heroes dare

To die, and leave their children free,

Bid Time and Nature gently spare

The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Whither, ’midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowlers’ eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,

As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek’st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink

On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,

The desert and illimitable air,

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,

Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,

Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,

And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend

Soon o’er thy sheltered nest.

Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallow’d up thy form; yet, on my heart,

Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,

And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

The rich man’s son inherits lands,

And piles of brick and stone, and gold,

And he inherits soft white hands,

And tender flesh that fears the cold,

Nor dares to wear a garment old;

A heritage it seems to me,

One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

The rich man’s son inherits cares;

The banks may break, the factory burn,

A breath may burst his bubble shares,

And soft white hands could hardly earn

A living that would serve his turn;

A heritage it seems to me,

One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

The rich man’s son inherits wants,

His stomach craves for dainty fare;

With sated heart, he hears the pants

Of toiling hands with brown arms bare,

And wearies in his easy-chair;

A heritage it seems to me,

One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

What doth the poor man’s son inherit?

Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,

A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;

King of two hands, he does his part

In every useful toil and art;

A heritage it seems to me,

A king might wish to hold in fee.

What doth the poor man’s son inherit?

Wishes o’erjoyed with humble things,

A rank adjudged by toil-won merit,

Content that from enjoyment springs,

A heart that in his labor sings;

A heritage it seems to me,

A king might wish to hold in fee.

What doth the poor man’s son inherit?

A patience learned of being poor,

Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it,

A fellow-feeling that is sure

To make the outcast bless his door;

A heritage, it seems to me

A king might wish to hold in fee.

O rich man’s son! there is a toil

That with all others level stands;

Large charity doth never soil,

But only whiten, soft, white hands—

This is the best crop from thy lands;

A heritage, it seems to me,

Worth being rich to hold in fee.

O poor man’s son, scorn not thy state;

There is worse weariness than thine,

In merely being rich and great;

Toil only gives the soul to shine,

And makes rest fragrant and benign;

A heritage, it seems to me,

Worth being poor to hold in fee.

Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,

Are equal in the earth at last;

Both children of the same dear God,

Prove title to your heirship vast

By record of a well-filled past;

A heritage, it seems to me,

Well worth a life to hold in fee.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r

The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such as, wand’ring near her secret bow’r,

Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,

The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

Or busy housewife ply her evening care:

No children run to lisp their sire’s return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke:How jocund did they drive their team afield!

How bow’d the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys and destiny obscure;

Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,

The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry; the pomp of pow’r,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

Await alike the inevitable hour—

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

If mem’ry o’er their tomb no trophies raise,

Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,

The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?

Can honor’s voice provoke the silent dust,

Or flatt’ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,

Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre.

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,

Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;

Chill penury repress’d their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air,

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast

The little tyrant of his fields withstood,

Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.

Th’ applause of list’ning senates to command,

The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,

And read their hist’ry in a nation’s eyes

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib’d alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin’d:Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,

And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,

To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,

Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride

With incense kindled at the Muse’s flame.

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,

Their sober wishes never learned to stray;

Along the cool, sequester’d vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet e’en these bones from insult to protect

Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck’d,

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unletter’d Muse,

The place of fame and elegy supply:

And many a holy text around she strews,

That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing anxious being e’er resign’d,

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

Nor cast one longing, ling’ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

Some pious drops the closing eye requires;

Ev’n from the tomb the voice of nature cries,

Ev’n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th’ unhonor’d Dead,

Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;

If chance, by lonely contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,

“Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

“There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,

That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,

His listless length at noontide would he stretch,

And pore upon the brook that babbles by

“Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,

Mutt’ring his wayward fancies he would rove;

Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,

Or craz’d with care, or cross’d in hopeless love.

“One morn I missed him on the custom’d hill,

Along the heath, and near his fav’rite tree;Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.

“The next, with dirges due in sad array,

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne—

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,

Grav’d on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.”

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth

A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown

Fair science frown’d not on his humble birth,

And melancholy mark’d him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

Heav’n did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to mis’ry all he had, a tear,

He gain’d from heav’n (’twas all he wish’d) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode

(There they alike in trembling hope repose)

The bosom of his father and his God.

Heaven is not gained at a single bound;

But we build the ladder by which we rise

From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,

And we mount to its summit round by round.

I count this thing to be grandly true,

That a noble deed is a step toward God—

Lifting the soul from the common sod

To a purer air and a broader view.

We rise by things that are ’neath our feet;

By what we have mastered of good and gain;

By the pride deposed and the passion slain,

And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.

We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust,

When the morning calls us to life and light,

But our hearts grow weary, and, ere the night,

Our lives are trailing the sordid dust.

We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray,

And we think that we mount the air on wings

Beyond the recall of sensual things,

While our feet still cling to the heavy clay.

Wings for the angels, but feet for men!

We may borrow the wings to find the way—

We may hope, and resolve, and aspire, and pray,

But our feet must rise, or we fall again.

Only in dreams is a ladder thrown

From the weary earth to the sapphire walls;

But the dream departs, and the vision falls,

And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone.

Heaven is not reached at a single bound:

But we build the ladder by which we rise

From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,

And we mount to its summit round by round.

Washed in the blood of the brave and the blooming,

Snatched from the altars of insolent foes,

Burning with star-fires, but never consuming,

Flashed its broad ribbons of lily and rose.

Vainly the prophets of Baal would rend it,

Vainly his worshipers pray for its fall;

Thousands have died for it, millions defend it,

Emblem of justice and mercy to all.

Justice that reddens the sky with her terrors,

Mercy that comes with her white-handed train,

Soothing all passions, redeeming all errors,

Sheathing the saber and breaking the chain.

Born on the deluge of old usurpations,

Drifted our Ark o’er the desolate seas,

Bearing the rainbow of hope to the nations

Torn from the storm-cloud and flung to the breeze!

God bless the flag and its loyal defenders

While its broad folds o’er the battle-fields wave,Till the dim star-wreaths rekindle its splendors

Washed from its stains in the blood of the brave!

Forenoon and afternoon and night—Forenoon and afternoon and night,

Forenoon, and—what!

The empty song repeats itself. No more?

Yea, that is life: Make this forenoon sublime,

This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer,

And Time is conquered and thy crown is won.