The Harvest of a Quiet Eye

ster decorations here and there about them, have drooped their long broad leaves. The grass and the trees have seemed to remain at a standstill, as though waiting for something. The plough-land h

e roofs want washing, the148 drains want flooding, the butts want filling. When I pour waterpot after waterpot of water about the roots of some favourite or needy plant, the water runs off the cak

r his garden-a steady three or four hours' downpour, not only such a slight show

e for the Creator's thoughts, embodied in beauty about them: poems written on the world's open page by the Hand of the great Poet, or Maker. For, rightly regarded, from the vast epic of the starry heavens, to the simple pastoral of a dewdrop,

and in books, a general neglect, if not a rooted dislike, with regard to rain-as such, and putting out of sig

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ennyson, what word has he for

happy mist, Like that which kept the heart of E

useful trouble"? I do not think that even Wordsworth dwells with

, and dreary, It rains, an

ears ago, a volume of un

e a rainbow! I am alone, The past is past. I see th

n the English mind, I say, for I suppose the want of appreciation of it arises from its somewhat abundance in

water: Thou preparest them corn, when Thou hast so provided for it: Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundant

ry; the "rain upon the mown grass, and showers that water the earth." How its mention is a signal for th

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cools his heart and brain; he longs to go forth into the fields, to feel its steady stream, to scent its fragrance; to stand under some heavy-foliaged chestnut-tree, and hear the rushing music on the crowded leaves. Let the drought have continued two months; let the glass have been, at last, steadily falling for a day or two; let, at last, a delicious mellow gloom have overspread the hot glaring heavens; let it have brooded all day,

trickle soon, A gracious rain, freshening the weary bower- Oh sw

then the gracious rain comes, gathering its forces-steady, close, abundant. Lean out of window, and watch, and listen. How delicious! The gradually-browning beds;

clash hard by, and

ty their gracious load, time after time, into the still expecting roots, and open their hands still for more. You can hardly leave the window. You come again at night; you have heard that ceaseless pour on the roof, on the skylight, and the

its nest, Gives a faint twitter of unrest,

come impetuously against the panes, with intervals of dreamy rustling, or in quick succession. You like to hear that sound as you lie in bed, for you think of the bedding plants that you have just put out, or of the burnt patches in the lawn, or of the turnip and onion seed; or, with a larger sympathy, you think of

so white and dusty, makes you long to sally forth upon it. Tearful puddles smile here and there on the walks; the drenched grass twinkles and sparkles, and reminds you of that exquisite description of "the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain." And, breakfast over, you walk out, through the garden gate, a little way into the road. There is a peculiar, as it were, growing warmth in th

ed flowers of the currant and gooseberry bushes have developed all over them into many blossom-laden strings. In the flower-beds the annuals appear above the round sanded patches; and of the bedding plants, no geranium, heliotrope, or verbena droops a leaf. You go back into the hou

ied and passionate, fleeing from the storm wind, hurled, like a volley of small musketry, against your streaming panes; and the few tarnished gold leaves of the beech-trees are struck down one af

p, Low thunders bri

Autumn, under an avenue, or in a copse, when every long bough and black branch is glittering, strung with trembling diamonds; when, the force of the wind and rain being kept from you by the trees and underwood, the gentle sadness and quiet melancholy of

ush with bright bayo

row bigger and bigger, and waver and fall, ever supplied by a

his comrade stood The

eauty of rain in the country, I will quo

f which you could select the newest by their being sharper in outline and darker than the rest. The aristocracy of five minutes ago, and the parvenues of the last moment, alike, as the soft warm r

thank me for this extract, and recall the

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my special pleading, still agree w

istening to You're but

o his d

derstood, You're not so

I have y

ure-plans, or our crops-remembering at Whose ordering it comes. People who grumble at the weather always remind me of the Israelites grumb

apt to be so), with whom is it that we are vexed? who has aggrieved us so that we speak as injured persons? Let us have a care. What is that "it" that we speak of as being "tiresome," "annoying"? The clouds, the winds, the

ant of thought, As we

as impious and profane. A heathen philosopher would have despised the silliness of losing the balance of your temper, when there is no one that you dare blame for the cause. A Christia

nd her party were traversing, under the conduct of their guide, the fertile158 plains west of the Carmel range. "Rain began to fall in torrents; Mohammed, our groom, threw a large Arab cloak over me, saying, 'May Allah preserve yo

ch depends on the lead which is given to your way of looking at it. Had a grumbling Christian been beside the lady instead of the at least pious-languaged Moslem, to mutter, and repine, and reiterate, "How very unfortunate" (whatever this word may mean) "we are!"

the sparrows fall, and by whom the very hairs of the head are all numbered-if this be our manner of regarding those dispensations which are above our control, I dare affirm that in nothing that the Great Maker expresses, shall we miss finding, not only use, but beauty. And if I have suggested to some minds any thoughts that may hereafter lead them to share my love for the beautiful rain, I rejoice that I have been to them the exponent of a beauty that they have missed hitherto; and I shall receive their gratitude when the soft showers come that water the earth. And if my meditations be read, unhappily for them, not during a dearth, but during a glut of rain, my pleasant l