Classic Poem

From week to week there came no rain,
The very birds took flight,
The river shrank within its bed,
The borders of the world grew red
With woods that flamed by night.

No rest beneath the fearful sun,
No shelter brought the moon;
Lean cattle on the reeded fen
Searched every hole for drink, and men
Dropped dead beneath the noon.

And ever as each sun went down
Beyond the reeling plain,
Into the mocking sky uprist,
Like phantoms from the burning west,
Dim clouds that brought no rain.

Each root and leaf and living thing
Fell sicklier day by day,
And I that still must live and see
The agony of plant and tree,
Grew weary even as they.

But oh, at last the joy, the change;
With sudden sigh and start
I woke upon the middle night,
And thought that something strange and bright
Had burst upon my heart.

With surging of great winds, a lull
And hush upon the plain,
A hollow murmur far aloof,
And then a roar upon the roof,
Down came the rushing rain.