Summer rain

A sombre, sagging sky

Of tossed and tumbled wrack

And ragged clouds, that lie

To meet the wind's attack,

Or march in columns black

And serried; then a still,

A feverish kind of thrill;

And whispering in the leaves,

And pattering on the pane,

It falls in very sheaves,

The weary, dreary rain.

The summer seems to sigh

As she were flouted back.

The grasses rot and die,

The corn begins to crack.

The flowers would like to pack,

It 's all so dank and chill,

Discomfortable and shrill:

While, flickering from the eaves

And gurgling down the drain,

The sodden world receives

The weary, dreary rain.

The big trees, broad and high,

Grow thick and blurred and slack.

The birds, too dull to fly,

Brood dismal, and the track

Shines. If a sudden quack

Sound from the ducks that swill,

The damp hush takes it ill.

But ever and on it weaves

Its rhythms with might and main,

And all its will achieves,

The weary, dreary rain.