A Summer Shower

Henry Timrod 1828 (Charleston) – 1867 (Columbia)



Welcome, rain or tempest
From yon airy powers,
We have languished for them
Many sultry hours,
And earth is sick and wan, and pines with all her flowers.

What have they been doing
In the burning June?
Riding with the genii?
Visiting the moon?
Or sleeping on the ice amid an arctic noon?

Bring they with them jewels
From the sunset lands?
What are these they scatter
With such lavish hands?
There are no brighter gems in Raolconda's sands.

Pattering on the gravel,
Dropping from the eaves,
Glancing in the grass, and
Tinkling on the leaves,
They flash the liquid pearls as flung from fairy sieves.

Meanwhile, unreluctant,
Earth like Danae lies;
Listen! is it fancy,
That beneath us sighs,
As that warm lap receives the largesse of the skies?

Jove, it is, descendeth
In those crystal rills;
And this world-wide tremor
Is a pulse that thrills
To a god's life infused through veins of velvet hills.

Wait, thou jealous sunshine,
Break not on their bliss;
Earth will blush in roses
Many a day for this,
And bend a brighter brow beneath thy burning kiss.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

56 sec read
68

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABXBB XCCCC XDEDD XFXFX AGXGG XBEHH XIXII
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,020
Words 187
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Henry Timrod

Henry Timrod was an American poet, often called the poet laureate of the Confederacy. more…

All Henry Timrod poems | Henry Timrod Books

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