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IX.

Rivers are torrents, vales and plains are lakes,
When February draws her curtains down.
Rain! rain! The universal snow forsakes
Moorland and mountain, forest, farm, and town.
Rain! Rain! it pours, it pours. Red land-floods drown
Blue ocean's baffled tide. With calm cold frown,
The cold grey rock, that saw death's cradle, wakes
From his old dream of drowth, to find his home
In cloud-hung deluge. The old forest shakes
His wrinkled forehead o'er the whirling foam
Of inland sea; and with the haste that takes
Life's sad last blessing, down the revels come
Of sky and upland, mix'd in cataract
That rioteth in waste, like one who long hath lack'd.