Classic Poem

The pale white skies hang in an ashen haze,
The far-off hills are veiled in faded blue;
Dust-clouds obscure the rambling country ways,
Half hiding teams and wagons straggling through.

Hour after hour the heat grows more intense;
An angry wasp drums on the window pane;
A panting peacock on the old rail fence
Peeps at the skies as though he prayed for rain.

An old ox dozes in a weary dream;
Long lines of sheep in patient silence pass;
Two horses tread a muddy half-dried stream,
Dust-powdered cattle browse on withered grass.

The passion-vine is withered at the gate,
A sickly rose is falling leaf by leaf;
Sunburned and thirsty, faded asters wait
For death to bind them in his yellow sheaf.

The splitted husk flips out its floating down,
The bursting pod shells out its rattling seeds.
The pasture is a desert burned to brown,
The garden is a withered waste of weeds.

O let dark clouds like ocean billows roll,
Let mellow thunders throb like muffled drums!
Let lightnings rouse the west wind's sleeping soul,
To rush with shouting as the rainstorm comes!

And yet this sickly, sweltering August day
Marks but the place we all must travel soon;
This is the end of all the mirth of May,
And this the ending of the joys of June!

When all the zest of youth is on the wane,
We sigh for storm-clouds of the bygone years;
The heart cries out in one long prayer for rain
To fall on parching lids in dewy tears.

Above my desert bosom, as of yore,
Once more let lightnings glitter, thunders roll!
Drown dusty memories; let there be no more
Drought in the heart, or famine in the soul!