The Latter Rain
THE latter rain,-- it falls in anxious haste Upon the sun-dried fields and branches bare, Loosening with searching drops the rigid waste As if it would each root's lost strength repair; But not a blade grows green as in the spring; No swelling twig puts forth its thickening leaves; The robins only mid the harvests sing, Pecking the grain that scatters from the sheaves; The rain falls still,-- the fruit all ripened drops, It pierces chestnut-burr and walnut-shell; The furrowed fields disclose the yellow crops; Each bursting pod of talents used can tell; And all that once received the early rain Declare to man it was not sent in vain.
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