For Rain.
“Send us, we beseech Thee—moderate rain and showers.”
—Prayer Book.
Hark! how the rain-drops with a silv'ry tone
Are on the languid flowers and fruits descending,
While balmy freshness, from the fields new-mown,
With sudden bloom seems all the landscape blending.
And a green radiance from reviving grass
Sparkles, when swift the breezy air-wings pass.
A Hand Almighty, in a viewless course,
Hath softly glided o'er the teeming ground,
And summoned into beauteous life and force
Creative energies, which there abound:—
From the mean insect, to you mighty Sun,
A new enchantment is from God begun!
Again the conscious brooks their anthems sing,
And wild bees hum within the blossom'd flower,
While young birds quiver on ecstatic wing
And sweetly carol o'er this rain-bright hour:
Around, beneath, one rich expanse of bloom
Hides from the heart, that earth contains a tomb!
O! blessed answer to a church-breath'd prayer
When mercy-showers descend with stealing fall,
That parch'd creation and the pulseless air
Their genial freshness may for man recall;
While, crown'd with plenty, glorious Harvest tells
The Lord is working with His myriad spells!
Nature in God, and God in Nature, too,—
Here is the creed which heaven-taught Science learns;
All veiled causation ever gazing through,
Religion greets Him, and her Lord discerns
In the bright rain-gems which impearl the land,
Or, when the storm-clouds round His throne expand.
And, eyeless are we, more than blind and base,
Victims of flesh, enthrall'd with vilest power,—
Divinity if thus we dread to trace
Nor see Heaven smiling through this gracious hour,
Since the dark heathens could their Rain-gods own,
And gave to Altars a memorial-tone.
Thou teaching Mother! in thy lore of Love
All nature proves a christian shrine to thee,
One vast cathedral, arch'd by skies above,
Where Saints and Angels blend their liturgy,—
Each, in due order, working out the plan,
Creation
ministers from God to Man.
Lord of my Soul! when rain and sunbeams send
Tokens of Thee, through forest, glade, or field,
Let Faith her anthems with Thy mercy blend
And worship Christ, in His own world reveal'd:
Where men see “Nature,” in a second cause,
She finds a Presence, which the soul o'erawes!
And grant, that on the prayerless minds of those
Who feel the with'ring blast of unbelief,
Thy spirit-dews, by which Devotion grows,
May drop, like latter rains that bring relief;
Till fruitless hearts, by fresh'ning grace restored,
Shall bloom with holiness, and bless The Lord.
