Classic Poem

“Rain is a long susurrance; it is no loud
Clamor, yet mutes the terrible bugles; no night,
Yet darkens the insupportable sunlight
And flame-borrowing bush and feather; it is a cloud,
And cool upon your heads, poor wrinkle-browed
Percipiences! Not true Styx, yet a river
Washing the wounded senses of their fever;
Or like a wall let down, or like a blessed shroud.

“Think of the happy dead men lying in ponds
Filled of rainwater—eyeballs rolling wide
In the comfort of that undusty unlit tide—
Ears flowered green and huge beyond the bawling
That shook the air of earth—tumbled, or crawling
On naked legs among the lily-fronds.”