We knew it would rain, for all the morn A spirit on slender ropes of mist Was lowering its golden buckets down Into the vapory amethyst. Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens-- Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers, Dipping the jewels out of the sea, To sprinkle them over the land in showers. We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed The white of their leaves, the amber grain Shrunk in the wind--and the lightning now Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain!
Six Songs to Nature , opus 10
by Eleanor Everest Freer (1864 - 1942)
2. Before the rain  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: English
Authorship:
- by Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836 - 1907), "Before the rain", appears in Cloth of Gold and Other Poems, first published 1875
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]3. After the rain  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: English
The rain has ceased, and in my room The sunshine pours an airy flood; And on the church's dizzy vane The ancient cross is bathed in blood. From out the dripping ivy leaves, Antiquely carven, gray and high, A dormer, facing westward, looks Upon the village like an eye. And now it glimmers in the sun, A globe of gold, a disk, a speck; And in the belfry sits a dove With purple ripples on her neck.
Authorship:
- by Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836 - 1907), "After the rain", appears in The Ballad of Babie Bell and Other Poems, first published 1859
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]4. The harvest moon  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: English
It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes And roofs of villages, on woodland crests And their aerial neighborhoods of nests Deserted, on the curtained window-panes Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests! Gone are the birds that were our summer guests, With the last sheaves return the laboring wains! All things are symbols: the external shows Of Nature have their image in the mind, As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves; The song-birds leave us at the summer's close, Only the empty nests are left behind, And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.
Authorship:
- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), "The harvest moon", appears in Masque of Pandora and Other Poems, first published 1875
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]