How beautiful is the rain! After the dust and heat, in the broad and fiery street, in the narrow lane, how beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters upon the roofs, like the tramp of hoofs! How it gushes, and struggles out, from the throat of the overflowing spout! across the window-pane, it pours and pours, and swift and wide, with a muddy tide, like a river down the gutter roars the rain, the welcome rain!

The sick man from his chamber looks at the twisted brooks; he can feel the cool breath of each little pool; his fevered brain grows calm again, and he breathes a blessing on the rain!

In the furrowed land the toilsome and patient oxen stand, lifting the yoke-uncumbered head; with their dilated nostrils spread, they silently inhale the clover-scented gale, and the vapours that arise from the well-watered and smoking soil, for this rest in the furrow after toil, their large and lustrous eyes seem to thank the Lord, more than man's spoken word.

Near at hand, from under the sheltering trees, the farmer sees! his pastures and his fields of grain, as they bend their tops to the numberless beating drops of the incesant rain. He ?****? it as no sin that he sees therein only his own ?****? and gain.

These, and far more than these, the Poet sees! He can behold Aquarius old walking the fenceless fields of air; and for each ample fold of the clouds about him roll'd, scattering every where the showery rain as the farmer scatters his grain.

He can behold things manifold that have not yet been fully told-have not been wholly sung or said: for his thought, which never stops, follows the water-drops down to the graves of the dead; down through chasms and gulfs profound, to the dreary fountain head of lakes and rives under ground; and sees them, when the rain is done, on the bridge of colours seven, climbing up once more to heaven, opposite the setting sun.

Thus the seer, with vision clear, sees forms appear and disappear, in the perpetual round of strange mysterious change from birth to death, from death to birth, from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, till glimpses more sublime of things before, unto his wondering eyes reveal the universe, as an immeasurable wheel turning forever more in the rapid and rushing river of Time.