Summer Rain
How gently it falls from the quiet sky,
On the lonely mead and the mountain high!
No voice of wind, no rush of gale,
No echo of storm in the leafy vale,
But soft as a fairy tapping the pane
When the moon is full, is the summer rain.
The thirsty flowers by the moorland streams,
And the hedgerow bends where the ivy gleams
Drink in the drops, as they gently fall
Pat, pat on the leaves, with a good for all;
And they whisper it over, and over again,
"Thanks, thanks for the freshening summer rain.
The fox-glove longed for the drops to come,
And the daisy pined in its lowly home,
The wild rose drooped on the dusty spray,
And the woodbine wept by the lone highway,
Till they quickly felt revived again
In the silent, softening summer rain.
How gently it comest And who can tell
Its blest results on field and fell,
On garden bower, and corn-mead green,
And where the fruit mid the leaves is seen:
Or the grasses bend on the thirsty plain
In the silent, softening summer rain!
So God's free grace in silence falls,
When the waiting one in spirit calls,
And the quiet worker is often blest
By him who soothes the seas to rest,
And the flowers appear on the gladdened plain,
In the silent, softening Spirit's rain.
