The Autumn Rain.

I.
ROOF and spire and darkened vane
Steep and soak in the night-long rain
That drips through the barns on the golden grain;
And a drowning mist sweeps over the plain,
And spatters with mud the rutted lane
And the dead flower-stalks that bud not again.

II.
Wind-driven drops of the autumn rain,
Beat, beat on the window-pane!
Beat, beat, sorrowful rain!
Drive through the night o’er the desolate plain!
Beat and sob to the old refrain,
And weep for the years that come not again.

III.
Years, with your mingling of joy and of pain,—
Joys long forgotten, and cares that remain;
Hopes lying stranded and choked in the drain
Of the down-rushing river of fate,—I would fain
Sigh with the night-wind and weep with the rain,
For ye come not again!—ye come not again!

1855.