Summer Rain / Hartley Coleridge

Summer Rain

Thick lay the dust, uncomfortably white,
In glaring mimicry of Arab sand.
The woods and mountains slept in hazy light;
The meadows looked athirst and tawny tanned;
The little rills had left their channels bare,
With scarce a pool to witness what they were;
And the shrunk river gleamed ’mid oozy stones,
That stared like any famished giant’s bones.

Sudden the hills grew black, and hot as stove
The air beneath; it was a toil to be.      
There was a growling as of angry Jove,
Provoked by Juno’s prying jealousy—
A flash—a crash—the firmament was split,
And down it came in drops—the smallest fit
To drown a bee in fox-glove bell concealed;
Joy filled the brook, and comfort cheered the field.

~~

Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849)

from Poems, 1851

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Hartley Coleridge biography