Rainy Weather

Up comes ‘Bouncing Bet’ again,
Pink and lusty in the lane.
Tansy’s odor keener is
Than all incense-mysteries.
Oh, the trees, —
How they strain
In the driven windy rain!

All the marsh-grass bows its head,
All the tide-ways blur and spread,
And the bay
Is as gray
As the roof o’ the miller’s shed.

Up the hill I run, together
With the wet and windy weather.
Hair in eyes and dripping cheek
(Oh, how cool and soft and sleek
Is the hand-touch of the rain!)
‘Bet’ and I bounce up the lane.

There the Dead Folk’s decent rows
Flank me, and the church upstands
With its high gray shoulders, close
On the Dead Folk’s silent lands.
— Oh, the trees,
How they strain!
Writhe and reach and fear the rain!
— ‘Bet’ and I bounce up the lane.

All the houses’ eyes are shut.
Still are they, as Dead Folk. But
Here a face, and there a bloom
Nodding scarlet to the gloom

Say the Dead alone do lie
On the hill, against the sky.

Oh, the wind, the driven rain!
How the silver poplars strain!
How the world seems wide and low
As along the lane I blow,
All alone, and glad to be
For a little. Beat on me,
Wild wet weather! Strike me, wind!
Flare my brown cape out behind; —
Wingèd as a gull I fly
All alone beneath the sky.

Oh, the trees,
How they strain!
How they clamor and complain!
Reckless in the sea-tinged rain,
‘ Bet’ and I bounce up the lane.